The Slimes has an interesting story. The Income Tax department uses informers to find out who’s cheating on their taxes, and conducts raids on them to recover the evaded taxes. The informers do this because they’re supposed to get a commission on the the recovered taxes.
In theory. Apparently the IT department has stiffed the informers:
On September 3, passersby outside Scindia House at Ballard Estate here will see an unusual satyagraha – a fast unto death by an elderly man whom the income-tax department owes money.
What’s unusual here – apart from the fact that the dues amount to an eye-goggling Rs 25 crore — is that the man will be masked.
…
“My sources have been threatening to kill me,” he says. “They refuse to believe that the I-T department has not paid me for cases as old as 15 years.”Gupta believes other informers will support him, as the department never pays heed to their post-raid claims. Indeed, the money owed by the government to the 60-odd informers in India totals a staggering Rs 1,200 crore. There are no written rules, only guidelines, for rewarding them.
Well, I suppose that’s what you get for trusting the Income Tax department.