Indian Revenue Service
revenue services of the government of India
The Indian Revenue Service (IAST: Bhāratīya Rājasva Sevā), often abbreviated as IRS, is a civil service that is primarily responsible for collecting and administering direct and indirect taxes. As a central civil service under Group A of the executive branch of the Government of India, it functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance and is under the administrative direction of the Revenue Secretary and the ministerial command of the Minister of Finance.
The IRS comprises two branches, Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) and Indian Revenue Service (Custom & Indirect Taxes), controlled by two separate statutory bodies, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). The duties of the IRS (IT) include among others, formulation of domestic direct tax policy (through the Tax Policy and Legislation Section), formulation of international tax policy (through the Foreign Tax and Tax Research Division), handling policy matters in respect of investigation of tax evasion (through the Investigation Section), updating, resolving and maintaining the relevant laws (through the ITA Division), administering the direct tax policy (through its field offices across the country), and administering all the associated administrative functions pertaining to direct taxes. The duties of the IRS (C&IT) include formulation and enforcement of policy concerning the Goods and Services Tax, prevention of smuggling, and administration of matters related to customs and narcotics.
In the 2017–2018 financial year (i.e. 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018), the IRS (IT) received 58,713,458 returns and collected direct taxes amounting to ₹11.37 trillion, spending ₹60,000 (equivalent to ₹91,000 or US$940 in 2023) for every ₹1,000 (equivalent to ₹1,500 or US$16 in 2023) it collected. The relative contribution of direct tax to the overall tax collection of the Central Government has risen from about 36% to 56% over the period of 2000–01 to 2013–14. The contribution of direct tax-to-GDP has doubled (from about 3% to 6%) during the same period.
History
Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax)
Direct tax in the form of an income tax was introduced by Sir James Wilson in India in 1860 to overcome the difficulties created by the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
The public source identifies “Indian Revenue Service” as revenue services of the government of India. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Indian, Revenue and Service.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6021410. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2018, 2023 and 2000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Indian Revenue Service” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.