Indian Revenue Service

The Indian Revenue Service, or IRS, is the organised Group A Central Civil Service that administers India’s taxes, working under the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance. It is constituted in two separate branches. IRS (Income Tax) administers the direct taxes under the Central Board of Direct Taxes, and IRS (Customs and Indirect Taxes) administers the Goods and Services Tax, customs and central excise under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. Both boards are constituted under Section 3(1) of the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963.

An officer enters as an Assistant Commissioner at Level 10 of the pay matrix, on an entry basic pay of Rs. 56,100 a month. At dearness allowance of 60% from 1 January 2026, the gross in an X-class city is Rs. 1,18,110 and the in-hand is about Rs. 1,01,300. The ladder ends at Level 17, a single fixed cell of Rs. 2,25,000 drawn by a Principal Chief Commissioner and by a Member of the Board.

The ranks are not an administrative convention. Section 236 of the Income-tax Act 2025 lists twelve classes of income-tax authority, and an IRS (Income Tax) officer holds a post at one of clauses (b) to (i) of that list for the whole career. The grades below, at clauses (j) to (l), are the departmental cadre: the Income Tax Officer, the Tax Recovery Officer and the Income Tax Inspector.

Entry runs on two tracks in equal shares. The Indian Revenue Service Rules, 2015 fill 50% of vacancies in the Assistant Commissioner grade by direct recruitment through the Civil Services Examination and the remaining 50% by promotion of Income Tax Officers, and put every new entrant on probation for two years.

This page sets out the two branches and the boards that control them, the statutory basis of each rank, both routes of entry, the pay and the in-hand at Level 10, the income tax payable on that salary, the ladder to Level 17, the training academies, the work, and the pension position. The figures for any other cell or city are worked out by the salary by pay level calculator, set here to Level 10.

The two branches of the service

The Indian Revenue Service is two services rather than one, split by the kind of tax each administers, and the split runs the whole length of each cadre.

IRS (Income Tax) administers the direct taxes, chiefly income tax under the Income-tax Act 2025. Its cadre controlling authority is the Central Board of Direct Taxes, and its officers staff the Income Tax Department from Assistant Commissioner up to the Principal Chief Commissioners and the Members of the Board. IRS (Customs and Indirect Taxes) administers the indirect taxes: the Goods and Services Tax, customs, central excise and narcotics enforcement. Its cadre controlling authority is the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, which was called the Central Board of Excise and Customs until Section 160 of the Finance Act, 2018 renamed it with effect from 29 March 2018.

Both boards sit under the Department of Revenue and both were constituted by the same provision, Section 3(1) of the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963, which received assent on 30 December 1963 and came into force on 1 January 1964. The Act is titled in the plural because it created two boards where the Central Board of Revenue Act, 1924 had created one.

The cadres do not meet. An officer allotted to one branch belongs to it for the whole career and does not cross to the other, so the choice made at allotment fixes the statute the officer will work to, the academy that will train the officer, and the board that will decide the officer’s postings for thirty years.

Statutory basis of the ranks

Every rank in the IRS (Income Tax) branch is a class of income-tax authority named in Section 236 of the Income-tax Act 2025, not a designation the department invented.

Section 236 opens with the words “For the purposes of this Act, there shall be the following classes of income-tax authorities” and then lists twelve, from the Central Board of Direct Taxes at clause (a) down to Inspectors of Income-tax at clause (l). Clause (a) is the Board itself, constituted under the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963. Clauses (b) to (i) are the grades an IRS officer holds:

Each clause pairs an investigation-side designation with an assessment-side one, which is why the same officer is a Deputy Director in a Directorate posting and a Deputy Commissioner in a charge. The rank does not change; the wing does.

The three classes below the service are the departmental cadre. Clause (j) is the Income Tax Officer at Level 8, clause (k) the Tax Recovery Officer, and clause (l) the Inspector of Income-tax at Level 7. An Income Tax Officer promoted to Assistant Commissioner moves from clause (j) to clause (i), which is the moment of entry into the Group A service.

Appointment is governed by Section 237. Section 237(1) vests the power to appoint income-tax authorities in the Central Government, and that is the provision under which an IRS officer is appointed. Section 237(2) lets the Central Government authorise the Board, a Principal Director General or Director General, a Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner, or a Principal Commissioner or Commissioner to appoint authorities below the rank of Deputy Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner, which is the route by which the departmental grades are filled. The line drawn in Section 237(2) is the line between the service and the cadre below it.

Section 238 lets the Board direct by notification that any income-tax authority shall be subordinate to another, and Section 239(1) lets the Board issue orders, instructions and directions that all income-tax authorities must follow. Section 239(2) then bars the Board from directing any authority to make a particular assessment or dispose of a particular case in a particular manner, and from interfering with the discretion of a Joint Commissioner (Appeals) or Commissioner (Appeals). An IRS officer therefore takes administrative direction from the Board but decides the case.

Entry and recruitment

The Indian Revenue Service is entered at the Assistant Commissioner grade, half by examination and half by promotion, under Rule 9 of the Indian Revenue Service Rules, 2015 notified by the Department of Revenue.

Those Rules constitute the Service as an organised Group A service and classify every post in it as a Group A post. Rule 4 fixes the duty posts in each grade and provides that the authorised strength, the designations and the pay scales of duty posts are determined by the Government from time to time, with power to make temporary alterations in the sanctioned strength. Cadre strength is therefore not a figure written into the Rules; it moves with each cadre review.

Direct recruitment fills 50% of the vacancies in the grade, on the results of the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. That is the same examination that recruits the IAS and the IPS, written in the same year against the same merit list, and an IRS allotment turns on the candidate’s rank and the order of service preference stated in the detailed application form. Eligibility for direct recruitment is whatever the Commission specifies for that examination.

Promotion fills the remaining 50%. An Income Tax Officer of the Group B departmental cadre is promoted to Assistant Commissioner on selection made from officers of the next lower grade. The consequence is structural rather than incidental: half of every Assistant Commissioner batch has come up from the Income Tax Inspector grade through the SSC CGL route rather than through the UPSC examination, and the two halves sit in the same grade on the same pay. The central government jobs hub sets out how the UPSC and SSC routes divide recruitment across the departments.

Probation and confirmation

Every officer appointed to the Indian Revenue Service serves two years on probation in the Assistant Commissioner grade, and the requirement applies to the promotee as much as to the direct recruit.

Rule 10 lets the controlling authority extend the period, and a decision to extend is ordinarily taken within eight weeks of the expiry of the previous period and communicated to the officer in writing with reasons. An officer considered fit at the end of probation, or at the end of the extended period, is retained in the Service on a regular basis and confirmed in due course against an available substantive vacancy. Confirmation is a separate step from the end of probation and waits on a vacancy in the permanent strength.

Probation for a direct recruit runs alongside training rather than after it. The officer draws Level 10 pay from the date of joining, so the Rs. 56,100 entry cell is the pay during the academy year and not a rate that begins at the first posting.

Pay at entry and in-hand

An Assistant Commissioner draws Rs. 56,100 a month in the entry cell of Level 10, which is the common entry cell for directly recruited Group A officers across the civil services under Part A of the Schedule to the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016.

Three of those figures move with the posting rather than the rank. House rent allowance falls to 20% in a Y-class city and 10% in a Z-class city, on the city classification for HRA. Transport allowance is Rs. 7,200 only in the places named in the annexure to the transport allowance Office Memorandum and Rs. 3,600 elsewhere, so an officer outside those places draws Rs. 5,760 with dearness allowance rather than Rs. 11,520. The CGHS subscription of Rs. 650 holds for Levels 7 to 11 under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. S.11011/11/2016-CGHS(P)/EHS dated 9 January 2017 and rises to Rs. 1,000 from Level 12, so the deduction changes on promotion to Joint Commissioner.

The government’s own pension credit does not alter the in-hand. The employer contributes 14% of basic pay plus dearness allowance, Rs. 12,566 a month at the entry cell, which is charged to salary and then deducted under Section 124(2) of the Income-tax Act 2025, so the two entries cancel. The NPS tax benefits article covers the three deductions and which of them a new-regime assessee keeps.

Income tax on the entry salary

An Assistant Commissioner pays income tax from the first month, which is the sharpest break between Level 10 and the departmental grades below it.

The annual gross at the entry cell in an X-class city is Rs. 14,17,320. The standard deduction of Rs. 75,000, granted by Section 19(1), Table serial 2 of the Income-tax Act 2025 where tax is computed under Section 202(1), brings the total income to Rs. 13,42,320. House rent allowance is fully taxable in that computation, because the exemption is not available where tax is computed under Section 202(1).

That total income sits above the Rs. 12,00,000 ceiling in Section 156(2)(a), so the rebate of up to Rs. 60,000 is not available and no marginal relief arises. Under the Section 202(1) slabs the tax is nil on the first Rs. 4,00,000, Rs. 20,000 at 5% on the next Rs. 4,00,000, Rs. 40,000 at 10% on the next Rs. 4,00,000 and Rs. 21,348 at 15% on the balance of Rs. 1,42,320. The liability is Rs. 81,348, and the 4% cess of Rs. 3,254 takes it to about Rs. 84,600 a year, which is Rs. 7,050 a month.

The contrast with the grades below is complete rather than one of degree. An Income Tax Officer at Level 8 and an Income Tax Inspector at Level 7 both pay nil in the entry cells, because the standard deduction keeps their total income inside the Rs. 12,00,000 ceiling and Section 156(2)(a) wipes out the tax. The income tax calculator runs the full computation on a stated salary, and income tax for government employees works through the regimes at this income.

The rank and pay ladder

The Indian Revenue Service runs from Level 10 at entry to Level 17 at the apex, and each rank corresponds to a class of authority in Section 236 of the Income-tax Act 2025.

The Level 13 entry cell of Rs. 1,23,100 is not the figure originally notified. The column notified on 25 July 2016 began at Rs. 1,18,500 and ran 21 stages, built on an index of 2.57. Ministry of Finance Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 16 May 2017 raised the index for that level to 2.67, and the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017, notified as G.S.R. 592(E) on 15 June 2017, substituted the column with an entry cell of Rs. 1,23,100 and 20 stages, with effect from 1 January 2016.

The number of cells falls sharply up the ladder, and that is what limits a career rather than the pay itself. Level 10 carries 40 cells and Level 16 carries four, so an officer who reaches Chief Commissioner exhausts the level in about twelve years of annual increments. Level 17 is a single fixed cell of Rs. 2,25,000 with no increment at all, so a Principal Chief Commissioner draws the same basic pay for the remainder of the career.

Promotion above Level 12 comes through selection against vacancies, not by length of service. Few officers reach Level 16 or Level 17, and an officer who stagnates in a grade may instead draw the benefit of non-functional upgradation or of the modified assured career progression scheme, neither of which confers the higher post. Pay on each promotion is refixed under the rules set out in pay fixation on promotion.

Training

A directly recruited IRS officer trains for the branch before taking charge, and the academy differs by branch even though the first stage is common.

The common stage is the Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, taken alongside the probationers of the other civil services. An IRS (Income Tax) officer then moves to the National Academy of Direct Taxes in Nagpur, the apex training institution of the Income Tax Department. An IRS (Customs and Indirect Taxes) officer moves to the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, the apex training institution of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, whose main campus is at Palasamudram in Andhra Pradesh, with sixteen zonal campuses from Shillong to Cochin. NACIN was training its 76th batch of IRS (Customs and Indirect Taxes) officer trainees in January 2026.

The syllabus splits with the branch. An Income Tax officer trainee is taught assessment, investigation, accountancy and the working of the Income-tax Act 2025 in depth. A Customs and Indirect Taxes officer trainee is taught Goods and Services Tax law, customs valuation and classification, and anti-smuggling enforcement. Neither academy teaches the other branch’s statute, which is one reason the cadres do not interchange after allotment.

What IRS officers do

An IRS (Income Tax) officer assesses and enforces the direct taxes, and the work changes character three times on the way up the ladder.

At Assistant and Deputy Commissioner the officer is an Assessing Officer for the higher-value and corporate cases that sit above an Income Tax Officer’s charge, with the monetary line between the two fixed by the Board’s jurisdiction orders under Sections 241 and 242 rather than by the Act. Postings at these grades run through assessment charges, the tax deducted at source and international taxation wings, and the investigation directorates that conduct search and survey. Faceless work is assigned under Section 245.

At Joint, Additional and Commissioner grades the work is supervision, approval and appeal. A Commissioner of Income-tax (Appeals) hears appeals against assessment orders and holds a discretion that Section 239(2) expressly protects from Board interference. At Principal Commissioner and above the officer commands a charge or a region, and at Member of the Board the officer frames direct-tax policy and issues the instructions that Section 239(1) makes binding on every authority below.

An IRS (Customs and Indirect Taxes) officer does the parallel work on the indirect side: Goods and Services Tax administration and audit, customs clearance, valuation and classification, anti-smuggling and narcotics enforcement, and adjudication of show-cause notices. The senior grades supervise commissionerates and sit on the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs.

The route from the departmental cadre

A candidate who does not clear the Civil Services Examination can still reach the Indian Revenue Service, because the Rules reserve half of the entry grade for departmental officers.

The climb has three rungs. It begins at Income Tax Inspector at Level 7 on an entry basic of Rs. 44,900, filled through the Staff Selection Commission Combined Graduate Level examination. It runs through promotion to Income Tax Officer at Level 8 on Rs. 47,600, a Group B gazetted post and the lowest rank that can make an assessment. It reaches the service when the Income Tax Officer is promoted to Assistant Commissioner at Level 10.

The rate of the climb is set by vacancies in the charge and by the departmental promotion committee, not by a fixed qualifying period, and it is the slowest step in the whole cadre. What makes it worth stating precisely is the destination: the promotee and the direct recruit occupy the same grade at clause (i) of Section 236, draw the same Rs. 56,100 entry cell, and serve the same two-year probation. The salary by pay level chart sets out the pay at each rung of the climb.

Indian Revenue Service compared with the IAS

The IRS and the IAS pay identically at entry and diverge only at the top of the ladder, which is the opposite of the common assumption that the gap opens early.

Both services enter at Level 10 on Rs. 56,100, and an IAS officer’s Junior Scale pay is fixed at that cell by Rule 5(1) of the Indian Administrative Service (Pay) Rules, 2016, notified as G.S.R. 870(E) on 8 September 2016. On central deputation in an X-class city the IAS gross is the same Rs. 1,18,110 and the in-hand the same Rs. 1,01,300, because dearness allowance, house rent allowance and transport allowance are paid at rates fixed by the Department of Expenditure for the level, not for the service.

The divergence is one cell. The IRS ladder ends at Level 17, a fixed Rs. 2,25,000. The IAS carries Level 18 above it, a fixed Rs. 2,50,000, which Rule 3(1)(D)(iii) of the IAS (Pay) Rules, 2016 reserves for the post of Cabinet Secretary. The second difference is not a pay one at all: an IAS officer is allotted to a state cadre and serves alternately under a state government and the Union, while an IRS officer serves the Union throughout and is posted by the Board across zones and charges.

What the Income-tax Act 2025 changed for the service

The Income-tax Act 2025, Act No. 30 of 2025, received assent on 21 August 2025 and came into force on 1 April 2026 in place of the Income-tax Act, 1961, so every section an IRS (Income Tax) officer works to carries a new number from the tax year 2026-27.

The powers carried over largely intact; the citations did not. The administration chapter maps as follows.

Two cautions apply to the new Act. It is not a pure renumbering, and the Income-tax Act 2025 article sets out the substantive changes that go beyond it. And the Act has already been amended, most recently by Act No. 4 of 2026 with effect from 1 April 2026, so the text as assented on 21 August 2025 is not the text in force.

The 1961 Act has not disappeared from an officer’s desk. It still governs income earned in the financial year 2025-26, so assessments for that year run on the old numbering while assessments for 2026-27 run on the new. A description of an IRS officer’s powers that cites only the 1961 numbering describes the position for one closing year, not the current one.

Pension

An IRS officer recruited after 1 January 2004 is on the National Pension System or the Unified Pension Scheme, and the Old Pension Scheme is closed to every serving officer of the service.

Under the National Pension System the officer contributes 10% of basic pay plus dearness allowance, Rs. 8,976 a month at the Level 10 entry cell, against the government’s 14%, Rs. 12,566. Under the Unified Pension Scheme, available on option from 1 April 2025, the assured payout is 50% of the average basic pay of the last twelve months of service after 25 years of qualifying service, with a proportionate amount for shorter service.

Because the Old Pension Scheme closed to entrants on 1 January 2004 and the IRS recruits only through routes that began after that date for anyone now at Assistant Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner, the defined-benefit pension survives in the service only among officers recruited before 2004, who are now in the senior grades and retiring out. The central government pension hub compares the three schemes in full.

Related Articles

• Cadre review
• IAS salary
• IPS salary
• Income Tax Officer
• Income Tax Inspector salary
• Income Tax Department
• Central Board of Direct Taxes
• Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs
• Department of Revenue
• Income-tax Act 2025
• Income tax slabs for AY 2027-28
• Income tax for government employees
• Civil Services Examination
• Union Public Service Commission
• SSC CGL
• SSC CGL salary
• Staff Selection Commission
• Central government jobs
• Pay matrix
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Salary by pay level
• Salary by pay level calculator
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• Income tax calculator
• Take-home salary of central government employees
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• City classification for HRA
• Transport allowance
• Annual increment
• Pay fixation on promotion
• Non-functional upgradation
• Modified assured career progression
• Cabinet Secretary pay
• Central Government Health Scheme
• Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Old Pension Scheme
• Central government pension
• Central government employees in India

External references

• Income Tax Department
• Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs
• Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance
• Union Public Service Commission
• National Academy of Direct Taxes
• National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics
• Department of Expenditure

References

1. Income-tax Act 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), assented 21 August 2025, in force 1 April 2026: Section 19(1) Table serial 2, Section 124(2), Section 156(2), Section 202(1), Section 236, Section 237, Section 238, Section 239, Sections 241 and 242, and Section 245.
2. Indian Revenue Service Rules, 2015 (Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance): Rule 3 (constitution of the Service as an organised Group A service), Rule 4 (authorised strength, designations and pay scales of duty posts), Rule 6 (initial constitution), Rule 9 (method of recruitment to the grade of Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, 50% by direct recruitment on the results of the examination and 50% by promotion of Income Tax Officers on selection under Schedule II), and Rule 10 (two-year probation, extendable by the controlling authority, and confirmation against a substantive vacancy).
3. Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963 (Act 54 of 1963), assented 30 December 1963, in force 1 January 1964, Section 3(1).
4. Finance Act, 2018, Section 160, renaming the Central Board of Excise and Customs as the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs with effect from 29 March 2018.
5. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 (G.S.R. 721(E), 25 July 2016), Part A of the Schedule.
6. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017 (G.S.R. 592(E), 15 June 2017), and Ministry of Finance Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 16 May 2017.
7. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026 (dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026).
8. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) (house rent allowance) and Office Memorandum No. 21/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 7 July 2017 (transport allowance).
9. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. S.11011/11/2016-CGHS(P)/EHS dated 9 January 2017, effective 1 February 2017.
10. Indian Administrative Service (Pay) Rules, 2016 (G.S.R. 870(E), 8 September 2016), Rule 3(1)(D)(iii) and Rule 5(1).