When the IT man comes knocking….

There’s Seven for You, Three for Me: Chronicles of a Taxman

Ajay Mankotia

Amazon

Price: Kindle edition Rs 299/Paperback Rs 299

To bridge revenue shortfall, the government has kept a punishing target of Rs 2 lakh crore for the income tax department in this fiscal. Reaching these numbers would not be easy in a country going through a monster slowdown and a very narrow direct tax base.  The IT department is also revisiting the data that was created during demonetization and may see a major surge in raids around the country.

What kind of preparations goes into these raids? And, does it yield much to help the IT department attain these difficult numbers? 

To find answers to these questions, it would make sense for many of those who think they are in the arc of an IT raid to read this lucidly written book by former IT officer Ajay Mankotia. Titled ‘There are seven for you and Three for me’, Mankotia’s memoir is not really a book limited to anticipating an IT raid and to conceal your riches, but a lot more. Endowed with a great memory — or did the author carefully maintain a diary — he goes about documenting painstaking details about his training days in Mussoorie and Nagpur where income tax officials with eclectic educational backgrounds are armed with skills to read the finer nuances of accounts. 

Mankotia recalls in great detail his training stint in Paris and how he negotiated deftly living arrangements in a hostel, where girlfriends could stay, but not a spouse. He recounts with relish how his wife prepared a great Indian meal for 250 trainees with almost non-existent spices. 

Mankotia recalls in great detail his training stint in Paris and how he negotiated deftly living arrangements in a hostel, where girlfriends could stay, but not a spouse. He recounts with relish how his wife prepared a great Indian meal for 250 trainees with almost non-existent spices. 

There are some very delicious anecdotes of these early years, but the real meat is in his life as an income tax officer. His stint in the IT department was co-terminus with some of the biggest financial heists that the country has seen. Indeed, it was a learning experience for the officers who had not dealt with any scandal of this dimension. For a journalist who covered ‘this scandal’ very closely, the recounting of the Harshad Mehta case in the book only helps in teasing a reader and stoke his desire to know more about the case and also the identity of those companies that benefited from the scam. It would help many of the young officers as well as those interested in the ‘history of financial crime’ in India to get an objective and well-researched book on the case from a seasoned and serving officer.

There are many incidents that the author shares that bring out the conflict between the State authority and existing feudal structures in the villages and small towns of the country. Some of those who were raided never could imagine that IT officials will visit them and hence resisted them with the help of goons. This retelling of the incident reads like a thriller.

What is it when the taxmen go knocking on the doors of Bollywood film actresses?  Here, again, they are more worried about who has had a visit from the IT department. And, once they realise that someone who is a worse offender has managed to evade their dragnet, then, they often go ballistic.

The success of most of these raids depends on recoveries. And when they find nothing to show — sometimes due to leaks — then it is deeply embarrassing for the department.

Mankotia shares with us his experience of what happens when a raiding party gets into the bedrooms of the people and starts rifling through their wealth papers and digging out their valuables secreted in some part of the house. Or, when they get their hands on the savings or jewelry of the women of the house. Invariably, they would plead with them not to share the details of their wealth with other ladies of the house. These hardened tax officials are conscious of these sensitivities and do not make a public display of these investigations.

What is it when the taxmen go knocking on the doors of Bollywood film actresses?  

Here, again, they are more worried about who has had a visit from the IT department. And, once they realise that someone who is a worse offender has managed to evade their dragnet, then, they often go ballistic.

With his kind of writing skills — he should have written a racy crime thriller based around his department or many other departments of the government that he has worked in. I would look forward to reading his next project, as should the readers who will get to know a spicy slice of life in the government apparatus otherwise feared and compulsively hidden from the public gaze.