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The income tax office building in Dhanbad on Friday. Picture by Gautam Dey
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The income tax department is all set to use pester power — with a twist — to mop up arrears and prevent evasions.
The department has decided to rope in school students to help convince their parents that income tax needs to be paid, and on time.
Letters have been sent to private, public, and government schools in Dhanbad, Giridih, Jamtara, Pakur, Sahebganj, Godda, Deoghar and Dumka —districts under the jurisdiction of the income tax department in Dhanbad. The schools have been asked to send lists of students of Class IX, X, XI and XII who could be roped in to spread awareness about the importance of paying taxes.
The selected students would be trained at the respective income tax offices and at special sessions conducted in the schools. The training at the tax office in Dhanbad is expected to begin on August 13.
“The schools have been divided into three broad categories — public, private and government — and have further been divided into nine sub categories like government co-educational schools, government boys schools, government girls’ schools, public co-ed schools, public boys’ schools, public girls’ school, private co-ed schools, private boys’ schools and private girls’ schools,” said Dhanbad income tax commissioner Rajiv Sinha.
He added that the awareness drives would be conducted in every quarter of the financial year and students in turn would convince their parents to deposit taxes. The students would be divided into groups of 20 to 25 and each group would be invited to the income tax office once a month to be apprised about the functioning of the department.
“Officers of the rank of assistant income tax commissioner would apprise the visiting students about the role played by the department in nation building through revenue collection,” said Sinha, adding that visiting students would be taken to various sections of the huge income tax office in front of Gandhi Chowk in Dhanbad.
Besides organising visits of students to the office, awareness sessions through seminars would be conducted in the schools.
“Our focus will be more on government school students as they are most deprived of required information and general knowledge due to their underprivileged status,” said Sinha, adding that they would motivate students to become honest citizens of the country.
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