This follows a renewed effort by CBDT to seek clarification on the issue.
The Income Tax department has notified forms for filing I-T returns for 2020-21 fiscal, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said on Thursday. "Keeping in view the ongoing crisis due to COVID pandemic and to facilitate the taxpayers, no significant change has been made to the ITR Forms in comparison to the last year's ITR Forms. "Only the bare minimum changes necessitated due to amendments in the Income-tax Act, 1961 have been made," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement. The Income Tax returns (ITR) forms ask taxpayers if they are opting for a new tax regime.
DDT is levied on dividends that a company pays its shareholders out of its profits. It is currently charged at the rate of 20.55 per cent, including a surcharge and education cess. Government may instead tax the shareholders receiving dividends, in a bid to help improve investor sentiment by addressing the multiplicity of taxes and bring down the effective tax rates for companies.
Based on the holding period, the profit you make is liable to short-term or long-term capital gains tax, experts tell Tinesh Bhasin.
Corp tax arrears at over Rs 3.11 trillion as of Dec 2014.
Comptroller and Auditor General has pulled up the finance ministry for flaws in double taxation avoidance agreements
Amid economic uncertainties owing to the pandemic, the government's key revenue agency, the Income Tax Department, has close to 400 vacancies at commissioner level and above, affecting its functioning. Seventy-three of the 91 chief commissioner positions are lying vacant, with some for more than a year. Chief commissioner is the second-highest post in the department, below principal chief commissioner, which is at par with secretary in a ministry.
The Income Tax department has suggested an amendment for taxation of bad debt to the Central Board of Direct Taxes
CBDT circular issued last month had raised multiple taxation concerns.
In a bid to woo foreign investment, the government on Friday said friendly economic policies would be continued to enable the country to move on to higher growth of 6.5-7 per cent this fiscal.
'Many non-resident taxpayers faced issues in filing Form 10F since the portal didn't allow those who didn't have PAN to file the form.'
Ahead of the first due date of advance tax payment on June 15, the government is likely to release guidelines on what will be covered within the ambit of virtual digital assets (VDA). To remove any ambiguity in the recently established tax framework for asset holders, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is currently preparing guidelines, said government officials in the know. The apex direct tax body will define non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and whether or not they fall within the purview of VDA.
Govt may tighten presumptive taxation norms and also do away with some deductions.
Like the UPA government, probably the NDA government also feels that hardships caused to taxpayers are just collateral damage and that taxpayers are too few and even those few don't have a vote (non-individuals) or don't vote, says Harsh Roongta.
Also, a dedicated cell, headed by a member of the Central Board for Direct Taxes (CBDT), will be set up to address concerns faced by start-ups.
"The emphasis is on making every rule, law, policy people-centric, and public-friendly. This is the use of the new governance model and the country is getting its results," Prime Minister Modi said while speaking at the launch of a platform for 'Transparent Taxation -- Honoring the Honest'.
'The kind of tax which will be generated from the second pillar may far outweigh what we may be losing in the first pillar.'
Ahead of the second instalment of advance tax, the revenue department is scrutinising entities that have registered negative growth in their tax deducted at source (TDS) payments, even when they reported healthy advance tax payments. According to sources, taxmen have observed a mismatch in TDS payments from at least 60-65 small to mid-sized companies. Officials said it is unusual for TDS to not increase, given the improved turnover and profits - if higher advance tax payments are any indication.
The income tax department was committed to treat every taxpayer as honest, unless proven otherwise, and provide fair, courteous and reasonable treatment, according to the taxpayers' charter adopted on Thursday. The charter also expects taxpayers to pay taxes on time and be honest and compliant.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
AG is of the view that there is no point in dragging the matter further when it has already been "struck down" by one international forum, and also by the top Indian court.
The Budget announcement of taxing 'virtual digital assets' or crypto currencies will help the income-tax department measure the "depth" of this trade in the country, know the investors and the nature of their investments and it does not "attach any legality" to these transactions, Central Board of Direct Taxes chairman J B Mohapatra said.
The coming Union Budget might give relief to foreign portfolio investors from taxation on indirect transfers.
The government on Friday extended he deadlines for various income tax compliances and said the amount paid by an employer to employees for Covid-19 treatment would be tax exempt.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
Some of the proposals include redrafting transfer and placement policy for IRS officers, strengthening the cadre restructuring, rebranding of IRS, robust deputation policy and creation of encadred post in other ministries and government department.
There are about 31,000 pending cases, locking revenue worth Rs 500 crore.
The comments come at a time when the Supreme Court-constituted Special Investigation Team has detected funds worth about Rs 4,479 crore (Rs 44.79 billion) held by Indians in a Swiss branch of HSBC bank, while unaccounted wealth totalling Rs 14,958 crore (Rs 149.58 billion) have been traced within home.
The due date for filing Income Tax returns for 2019-20 has already been extended till November 30, 2020.
'I'm pitching India for the strengths we offer, including the English language, engineers, doctors, nurses, professionals, innovative talent of startups.'
Taxmen have come across instances where global firms - charged a withholding tax of 6 per cent - are underreporting the exact income they earned from an Indian user.
The central government's clarification on the 2 per cent equalisation levy on foreign digital operators in the Budget, which considerably expands the scope of the levy, might be challenged in court, with several companies contemplating filing a writ petition in the coming few weeks. The writs might be filed on the grounds of the levy's alleged extra-territorial overreach, as it aims to cover those entities that do not have a physical presence in India, going against international taxation rules.
In its effort to unearth black money stashed away abroad, India has received data on over 24,000 instances of alleged tax evasion and dubious funds which has been detected in foreign shores in the last financial year.
Downloading songs, movies, books? You may have to pay tax on it.
The US launched an investigation, focusing on whether the tax in India and other countries discriminated against American companies, were retroactive, and reflected unreasonable tax policy.
In its essence, GST is a national level system of value added taxation of goods and services, says Shankar Acharya.
The absence of criminal legal treaties between India and tax haven nations have been cited by probe agencies working in the SIT on black money as one of the major impediments in initiating steps to bring back illegal funds stashed abroad by Indians.
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