Income Tax Officer (Inspector) - How to become an Income Tax Officer (Inspector)

Income Tax Officer as the name itself indicates is an officer who deals with the income tax related matters of the Central Board of Direct Taxes acronym as CBDT, a department of central government in India. ITO as the Income Tax Officer is commonly known, is one of the feared name in India as there are so many defaulters of income tax in our country. It is the responsibility of the ITO’s to hunt for those defaulters and bring them to the notice of the department so that they can be compelled to pay their tax according to their real income.

But to discharge his duties one has to be very brave, hardworking, honest as well as tactful as he has to deal with so many high profile people that may use their influence in high echelons to save themselves and in turn prove the officer wrong or impartial. This is a job for persons with fire in them but that should be controlled by themselves and should be used as and when required during their raids and investigation judicially.

To become an Income Tax Officer in India the aspiring candidates have to undergo a selection process of written and oral exams conducted by Staff Selection Commission so that only the best among the aspirants could be selected.
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Income Tax Officer Eligibility

Educational Qualification
To be eligible for becoming an Income Tax Officer one should hold a Bachelor's degree of any stream.

Age Limits
The candidate must have attained the age of 18 years on 1st July of the year of examination and must not have attained 27 years of age on that date. The upper age limit will be relaxed by 3 years for OBC candidates and 5 years for SC/ST candidates. The upper age limit is also relaxed in favour of certain categories of employees working under the Government of India and Defense Services Personnel.

How to become an Income Tax Officer?

To become an Income Tax Officer the aspiring candidates has to follow the given steps:

Step 1
As a first step, the aspirant has to procure the “Application Form” along with required information from the employment newspaper generally published in the month of April (or the official website of SSC). sent the filled Application form to the regional centres as mentioned.

Note: The notification for the examination with relevant details regarding rules and syllabus is published in the month of April in the 'Employment News' / 'Rozgar Samachar', 'Gazette of India', and in some leading Newspapers of the country.

Step 2
Preliminary Examination
In the month of May or June, the aspirants have to take the “Preliminary Exam” consisting of two papers. The papers are on:

Note: This exam is just a qualifying exam for the Final exam and scores obtained in this exam are not added to make the final result.

Step 3
Main Examination
Those candidates who are declared qualified in the “Preliminary Exam” are supposed to take the final exam.
The final examination will consist of two part. Part A will be of written examination and second Part B will be of Personality Test.

Step 4
Personality Test
Once you are through the final stage is the interview. The aspirants are grilled in the interview to test their personality and mental ability. Then the final list of the successful candidates is prepared.

Income Tax Officer Job Description

As income tax is one of the important source of income that the government has to spend on the developmental works, therefore it becomes important that the tax could be collected properly so that the developmental works of the government could be continued. But to do this work is not an easy task as some time ITO's have to deal with high profile people like the politician, public figure, etc. Therefore this job is considered a tough job which makes it a high profile career.

Income Tax Officer Career Prospects

ITO in India can go up to the post of Income Tax Commissioner with time.

Income Tax Officer Salary

An income tax Officer gets the pay scale of Rs.6500-Rs.10,500.The Government of India has fixed salary grades for its employees at various posts. Although they keep on changing with new pay commission

Note: The above scales only provide an idea of the pay scales. Different branches of the service have different scales of pay. Even personnel of same branches may have different pay according to their area of posting and responsibility they are holding at a particular time. In addition to the salary ITO’s receive various types of allowances such as Dearness Allowance, City compensatory Allowance, Leave Travel Allowance, Medical and subsidized housing.