My First Article on Tax and Tax administration

 

(Head office, circa 2000. I was officer in charge of VAT Cell and in addition, in charge of Manual Officer)

G.C.Pati was a dynamic commissioner. The state Chief Ministers, in a conference in November, 1999, convened by Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Sinha, took the decision to replace sales tax with VAT. The government of India constituted Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers (EC) in July, 2000, to coordinate among the states, and design VAT structure, in consultation with the states, for smooth transition from sales tax to VAT. The EC met almost every month. Mr Pati attended the meetings with the state finance minister. He commanded respect at the national level among the commissioners of other states for his enthusiasm for reforms and innovative ideas in tax administration. He had written an essay on VAT and the consequent tax administration under the title, ‘Towards Tax Administration’ and distributed it among the officers. The essay was of eleven pages.

The assistant commissioner of Bhubaneswar range, got the essay translated into Odia and published it in ‘Sambad’ and ‘Samay’. The Additional CTO, who translated the essay, was a columnist; he wrote features in Odia newspapers and had good command over language. But he, then, did not understand VAT. He made literal translation of the essay into Odia. That  was incomprehensible for the common man. There were certain words used in VAT or taxation for which Odia vocabulary did not have the corresponding words. He wrote whatever came to his mind, just to please the assistant commissioner, his boss who was pestering him to finish  soon .

I took a copy of ‘Sambad’ to the commissioner in the morning. He had already seen it. He said, “The translation is a bit difficult, I don’t understand. Can’t it be published in any English newspaper?”

I said, “Yes, it can; but not this long, maximum within one thousand or eleven hundred words. It means three or three and half pages.”

He said, “Make it precise, if you can.”

I did and showed him; he approved.

I gave the article to Pradeep Biswal. Then he was C.T.O, Cuttack I West Circle. He gave it to Srimay Kar, the resident editor, Indian Express. Indian Express published it in its national page.

After a few days, Commissioner called me just after he reached the office and said, “Karnatak commissioner had telephoned me. He appreciated the article on VAT, published today in Indian Express.”

I was not subscribing Indian Express, I had not seen it. I had been to Bangalore on VAT training in December, 2000 and met the Karnatak commissioner. He was in full praise of G.C.Pati. The article was well appreciated.

Pati said, “Can’t you translate it into Odia?”

I said, “I shall try.”

It was difficult to find exact Odia equivalent for English words to express, in such kind of technical subject. I had coined certain words in Odia, for example, VAT or Value Added Tax. In consultation with Saroj Ranjan Mohanty, editor, ‘Jhankar’ I decided mulyajuktakara for VAT. Later, government adopted it for official use. I did not, in certain cases, make one word. Rather than finding one word, I explained, e.g. cascading in Odia as increase of prices of commodity on account of tax on tax, input tax credit as credit of tax paid on purchase, etc. I took two or three days to translate. In some places, I put the English words in brackets so as to make it intelligible.

         (My first article on taxation, published by my name, in Prajatantra, 24 October, 2001)

(Since then, I have been writing in Odia and have published more than two hundred articles on taxation and economy. I have developed Odia language to express these technical matters and no longer have I to give English words in brackets to make those intelligible to the common readers)

But government transferred G.C.Pati on the day I finished.

We heard there was some misunderstanding between the finance minister and commissioner over the annual officers' transfer order. G.C.Pati did not like to continue. He met the chief secretary and requested for his transfer. I met him in the morning and showed him the Odia article. He was waiting for the new incumbent to hand over charges. He glanced at the article and said, “You publish it by your name.”

I said, “Sir, this is yours, I have just translated.”

He said, “Okay, no problem, you publish it by your name.”

‘Prajatantra’ published the article by my name and that was the first article published by my name on tax and tax administration.

***