Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday asked tax officers to use simple language in income tax communications so that notices do not instil fear in the minds of taxpayers. Advising the income tax officers not to take "disproportionate" action and use enforcement measures only, as the last resort, Sitharaman said tax officers should use "power judiciously".
The income tax department on Saturday said it has launched a campaign to send messages to taxpayers who have not disclosed high-value foreign income or assets in their ITRs for AY 2024-25. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has launched a Compliance-Cum-Awareness Campaign for Assessment Year (AY) 2024-25 to assist taxpayers in accurately completing Schedule Foreign Assets (Schedule FA) and reporting income from foreign sources (Schedule FSI) in their income tax returns (ITR).
The income tax department has allowed tax officials to either waive or reduce interest payable by a taxpayer, subject to specified conditions. Under the Income Tax Act Section 220 (2A), if a taxpayer fails to pay the tax amount specified in any demand notice, he/she is liable to pay interest at 1 per cent per month for the period of delay in making the payment. The Act also empowers Principal Chief Commissioner (PrCCIT) or Chief Commissioner (CCIT) or Principal Commissioner (PrCIT) or Commissioner rank officers to reduce or waive the amount interest due to be paid.
GST officers can now launch prosecution against offenders in cases where the amount of evasion or misuse of input tax credit is more than Rs 5 crore, the finance ministry has said. However, this monetary threshold will not be applicable in the case of habitual evaders or in cases where arrests have been made at the time of investigation. "One of the important considerations for deciding whether prosecution should be launched is the availability of adequate evidence," the GST investigation wing under the finance ministry said, while issuing instructions for launching prosecution.
In 2019-20 Budget, the government had increased surcharge from 15 per cent to 25 per cent on those with taxable income between Rs 2-5 crore and from 15 per cent to 37 per cent for income above Rs 5 crore. Following the increase, the effective income tax rate for individuals with a taxable income of Rs 2-5 crore will go up from 35.88 per cent to 39 per cent and for those above Rs 5 crore it would go up to 42.7 per cent.
The same day the tax sleuths had raided the house of DMK MP S Jagathrakshakan and some of those linked to him. The MP from Arakkonam has interests in a variety of business sectors.
The department has started to prepare the knowledge portal which will be fully equipped with the best orders, practices and write-ups on various legal issues arising out of the Income-Tax Act. Officials working in various I-T Directorates across the country have been asked to contribute their experiences, knowledge and dealings on any selected topic in the form of a synopsis.
Taxmen are opposing proposals to cut personal income and corporate tax and scrap taxes on various transactions.
Setting aside the orders of the AO and Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) in case of Delhi-based Genesis Overseas case, the ITAT has ruled that tax sleuths cannot impose penalty without clearly mentioning the grounds for such action.
The CBDT is in the process of creating a Directorate of Criminal Investigation after getting approval from Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee last week.
He reminded the officials that it was because of increased tax buoyancy and collection efforts of Revenue departments that the government was able to waive off the loans to farmers amounting to Rs 71,000 crore (Rs 710 billion).
Apart from Modi, Jaggi Vasudev to address 2-day tax officers' conference
The CBDT has revised the target upward by 10 per cent (Rs 53,000 crore or Rs 530 billion) for the current fiscal to keep the fiscal deficit at the budgeted level of 4.6 per cent of the gross domestic product.
In a major crackdown on Chinese mobile companies, the Income Tax department is conducting searches on leading Chinese mobile companies across the country. Mobile companies including Oppo, Xiaomi and One Plus are being covered in this search, sources told ANI on Wednesday. More than two dozen premises are covered in the search which started on Tuesday. "Raids are ongoing in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Greater Noida, Kolkata, Guwahati, Indore and some other places," sources told ANI.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued detailed guidelines on facilitating tax deducted at source (TDS) on virtual digital assets (VDA) or crypto assets, under which date of transfer and mode of payment will have to be specified. From July 1, TDS of 1 per cent will be levied on payments towards virtual digital assets or cryptocurrencies beyond Rs 10,000 in a year, as the Finance Act 2022 has introduced Section 194S in the income tax (I-T) Act. The department has explained different scenarios through six questions to remove difficulties.
Ramkrishna is in the news after a recent Sebi order said she was steered by a yogi, dwelling in the Himalayan ranges, in the appointment of Anand Subramanian as the exchange's group operating officer and advisor to the managing director (MD).
CBDT chief also set a monthly target of disposing of pending appeals by sending communication through the e-filing portal and or through emails only.
India's new tax policy which makes it mandatory to disclose foreign is not so common in developed countries.
The Income Tax department on Friday conducted separate 'survey operations' at the premises of online news portals Newsclick and Newslaundry in New Delhi, officials said.
Information gathered from a person's social media account will be matched with his or her declared income.
Now, more pieces of information about your transactions and income, such as remittances received from overseas, will be uploaded in Form 26AS by the income-tax (I-T) department. This will help the taxpayer file I-T return (ITR) correctly and assist the department in detecting discrepancies, if any, in the ITR. Besides foreign remittances, these new items are interest on I-T refund, dividend from mutual funds (MFs), and purchase of MFs, among others.
CBDT has directed officials to start scrutinising information from tax evasion petitions, and take them up on a priority basis.
Equity inflows worth $3.7 billion came from the sunny Caribbean jurisdiction in 2019-20, a 267 per cent increase from the $1 billion registered in 2018-19 making it India's 10th largest source of FDI.
A search operation was launched in the office block and a room used by jailed and deposed All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader V K Sasikala
The taxmen provisionally sent orders to attach their properties in Mumbai, New Delhi, Pune, Goa and also over two dozen land parcels across the state with a combined market value of around Rs 1,400 crore
The searches are linked to suspected movement of hawala money during the ongoing polls season and tax evasion, they said.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
The apex body also wants to bring in systemic reforms, especially to redress grievances of the small taxpayers such as - increased automation of the processes, e-filing, centralised processing of the tax returns and other bulk operations.
The CBIC has come out with guidelines on blocking of tax credit by GST field officers, saying that such blocking should be on the basis of 'material evidence' and not just out of 'suspicion'. The guidelines laid down five specific circumstances in which such credit could be blocked by a senior tax officer. These include availment of credit without any invoice or any valid document, or availing of credit by purchasers on invoices on which GST has not been paid by sellers.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has urged the Income-Tax department to ensure enhanced accountability and probity in public dealings and see to it that honest and tax compliant people are treated with "dignity and courtesy".
Money changers operating behind the RBI HQ in Mumbai said they would charge a 15% fee to convert Rs 1 crore.
The government will settle almost all the retrospective tax cases this month, closing a chapter that plagued India's reputation as an investment-friendly destination, a top official said on Friday. A 2012 amendment that gave taxmen powers to go back 50 years and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India, was used to raise Rs 1.1 lakh crore demand against multi-nationals such as telecom group Vodafone, pharmaceuticals company Sanofi and brewer SABMiller, now owned by AB InBev, and Cairn Energy Plc. Such demands brought uncertainty in the minds of investors.
There are about 31,000 pending cases, locking revenue worth Rs 500 crore.
GST authorities have expanded the probe into alleged tax evasion by fintech firm BharatPe to include reported issuance of fake invoices by those close to the firm's ousted co-founder Ashneer Grover, an official said. GST authorities are now scrutinising BharatPe books of the last four years to see if bogus invoices were issued for services as well. BharatPe had stripped Grover and his wife Madhuri Jain of all positions after a preliminary report of an external audit commissioned by the fintech firm's board showed that the duo indulged in alleged misdeeds and financial irregularities.
Jai Corp Ltd, promoted by Reliance Industries Ltd chairman Mukesh Ambani's confidant Anand Jain, on Friday said that it has complied with requirements laid down by the Income Tax department and that nothing was found from the chairman's residence during searches on Thursday.
The reason for the largesse, a first in the revenue department, is on account of direct and indirect tax collections exceeding the target (Budget estimate) for 2006-07. Total revenue collections stood at Rs 470,987 crore (Rs 4,709.87 billion) for the year, against the targeted Rs 439,952 crore (Rs 4399.52 billion).
"It is a logical step. The information gathered through annual information returns will now be compared with the tax returns of individuals to see if taxes are paid correctly or not," said a consultant with a leading tax advisory firm.
The taxman can come to different conclusions in different years on similar facts
A senior Central Board of Direct Taxes official told Business Standard the Income Tax department had decided to intensify its vigil on the non-payment of TDS on interest earnings and non-disclosure of such income in the tax return.
Income Tax sleuths are looking forward to be trained in the ways of intelligence gathering similar to RAW and IB personnel as they feel the present techniques employed by them are 'ad hoc'.
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