After drilling fear in taxpayers through increased scrutiny in the last few years, the Narendra Modi government is now cracking down on "tax terrorism", the hounding of ordinary taxpayers by the tax department. However, this doesn't mean the government has stopped its war on tax evasion. It has decided to focus on the big fish instead.Recently, the chief of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) — the finance ministry arm which serves as the apex body for Income tax (I-T) — directed all principal chief (I-T) commissioners to closely monitor and resolve all cases of "highpitched" (unreasonable) tax demands. These cases pertain to aggressive demands made by tax assessing officers (AOs) — often driven by stiff targets — on frivolous grounds or due to non-observance of principles of natural justice, non-application of mind and gross negligence.Addressing the heads of different tax circles in an internal note dated July 4, 2018, CBDT chairman Sushil Chandra said that wherever local committees — which were formed to look into complaints of tax payers — have taken a view that a tax assessment is indeed ‘high-pitched’, the AOs should be asked to give explanation.And significantly, wherever required such AOs should be transferred to “nonsensitive posts” within the city and “appropriate disciplinary action” should be initiated, said Chandra. In his letter, Chandra categorically instructs the principal chief commissioners that “no coercive action should be taken for recovery of demand in cases which have been identified as high-pitched by the local committees”.The tax department also wants to shed the tag of compulsive litigant and focus only on select high-value cases. The government has decided to sharply increase the monetary thresholds at various levels – in the courts and appellate tribunals – to cut down on litigation, a measure that will reduce the number of appeals against adverse rulings.The threshold for cases in the Supreme Court will be increased to Rs 1 crore from Rs 25 lakh, while for the high courts, the level will more than double to Rs 50 lakh from Rs 20 lakh under the rationalisation exercise that will apply to both direct and indirect taxes.Under the new rules, 54% of the appeals filed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes will be withdrawn. The reduction of appeals by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs in the Supreme Court will be 21%"Government's decision of withdrawing cases and increasing the threshold limit for filing appeals in various courts will improve Ease of Doing Business and Ease of Living. The move will also help in reducing tax litigation," tweeted Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Coal with a temporary charge of the finance ministry, two days ago."Tax terrorism" had become a commonly used term to describe rampant harassment by the tax department under the previous United Progressive Alliance regime. The Modi government had promised to provide a non-adversarial tax regime and unveiled a slew of steps to shed this tag.