Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Revenue

Central Board of Direct Taxes

New Delhi, 09th January, 2020

PRESS RELEASE

CBDT grants relaxation in eligibility conditions for filing of Income-tax Return Form-1 (Sahaj) and Form-4 (Sugam) for Assessment Year 2020-21

In order to ensure that the e-filing utility for filing of return for assessment year (A.Y) 2020-21 is available as on 1st April, 2020, the Income-tax Return (ITR) Forms ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-4 (Sugam) for the A.Y 2020-21 were notified vide notification dated 3rd January, 2020. In the notified returns, the eligibility conditions for filing of ITR-1 & ITR-4 Forms were modified with an intent to keep these forms short and simple with bare minimum number of Schedules. Therefore, a person who owns a property in joint ownership was not made eligible to file the ITR-1 or ITR-4 Forms. For the same reason, a person who is otherwise not required to file return but is required to file return due to fulfilment of one or more conditions in the seventh proviso to section 139(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act), was also not made eligible to file ITR-1 Form.

After the aforesaid notification, concerns have been raised that the changes are likely to cause hardship in the case of individual taxpayers. The taxpayers with jointly owned property have expressed concern that they will now need to file a detailed ITR Form instead of a simple ITR-1 and ITR-4. Similarly, persons who are required to file return as per the seventh proviso to section 139(1) of the Act, and are otherwise eligible to file ITR-1, have also expressed concern that they will not be able to opt for a simpler ITR-1 Form.

The matter has been examined and it has been decided to allow a person, who jointly owns a single house property, to file his/her return of income in ITR-1 or ITR-4 Form, as may be applicable, if he/she meets the other conditions. It has also been decided to allow a person, who is required to file return due to fulfilment of one or more conditions specified in the seventh proviso to section 139(1) of the Act, to file his/her return in ITR-1 Form.

 

(Surabhi Ahluwalia)

Commissioner of Income Tax

(Media & Technical Policy)

Official Spokesperson, CBDT.

 

MINISTRY OF FINANCE

(Department of Revenue)

(CENTRAL BOARD OF DIRECT TAXES)

NOTIFICATION No. 107/2019

Dated: 30th December, 2019

S.O. 4708(E).—In exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (2) of section 139AA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘Act’) (43 of 1961) , the Central Government hereby amends the notification of the Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue), dated 28th September, 2019 published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part-II, Section 3, sub-section (ii) vide S.O. number 3539(E) :—

2. In the said notification:—

    31st December, 2019 shall be substituted by 31st March, 2020.

[F. No. 225/75/2019-ITA. II]

RAJARAJESWARI R., Under Secy. (ITA.II), CBDT

 

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Revenue

Central Board of Direct Taxes

Dated: 16th December, 2019

PRESS RELEASE

Extension of date of Direct Tax payment in respect of third instalment of advance tax for FY 2019-20

Considering the large-scale disruption of Internet Services in the North Eastern States-Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, in exercise of powers conferred under clause (a) of sub-section (2) of section 119 of the Income-tax Act, 1961, has decided to extend the last date for payment of December instalment of Advance tax for FY 2019-20, from 15 th December, 2019 to 31 st December, 2019 in case of all the assessees, Corporate and other than Corporate, in the above mentioned States.

(Surabhi Ahluwalia)

Commissioner of Income Tax

(Media & Technical Policy)

Official Spokesperson, CBDT

 

Ministry of Finance

Presentation made by Dr. A.B. Pandey, Revenue Secretary, on major initiatives taken on taxation

Dated: 13 DEC 2019

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, held a press conference on the measures taken to boost economy.  Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Secretary, Revenue Department, gave a presentation on the Major Initiatives taken by the Revenue Department on taxation.

 

Revenue presentation

Refund of taxes

Taxes	2018-19		2019-20 (till 11.12.2019)
	Nos (lac)	Amount	Nos (lac)	Amount
Income Tax	1.84 crore	1.23 lakh Cr	2.16 crore	1.57 lakh Cr
% increase over 2018-19			17%	27.2%

 

Major initiatives in the Direct Taxes

Legislative measures Post-budget

• Reduction in CT rate for all existing companies: An existing domestic company can opt to pay tax at 22% (i.e. effective tax rate of 25.17%) as against the existing highest effective CT rate of 34.94 if it does not claim any tax exemption / deduction-No MAT for these companies.

• Reduction in CT rate for new manufacturing companies: A new domestic manufacturing company can pay tax at 15% (i.e. effective tax rate of 17.16%) if it does not claim any tax exemption/ deduction- No MAT for these companies.

• Reduction in rate of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT): The rate of MAT for the other companies has also been reduced from 18.5% to 15%.

• Grand-fathering of Buy-back provisions: The buy-back announced on or before 5th July, 2019 were exempted from the Buy-back tax.

• Relief from enhanced surcharge in certain cases: The enhanced surcharge was removed for capital gains on transfer of listed equity share/certain units and also for capital gains income of FPIs from securities trading.

• Enhanced depreciation for Auto sector: The rates of depreciation was increased by 15% for new motor vehicles.

Ease of compliance

• Faceless assessment: In order to reduce the interface between the taxpayer and tax officers, faceless assessment has been launched on 7th October, 2019-Total number of cases to be assessed under the scheme is 58,322 - Questionnaire in the faceless manner has already been issued in 19883 cases.

• Document Identification Number (DIN): From 01.10.2019, it has been made mandatory for all notices/summons/orders etc. issued by the income-tax authorities shall have DIN - 6.42 crore communications with DIN has already been issued by the Department.DIN_Notice.pdf

• Simplification of compliance norms for Start-ups: start-ups have been provided hassle-free tax environment which incudes simplification of assessment procedure, exemptions from Angel-tax, constitution of dedicated start-up cell.

• Reduction in Litigation: The monetary limit for filing of departmental limit has been enhanced by 100-150 %-more than 13,000 appeals have been withdrawn by the Department after the enhancement.

• Prefilling of ITRs: Pre-filled returns provided to more than 2 crore salaried taxpayers for AY 2019-20.

• Speedy Issuance of Refunds: There is significant growth in the issuance of refund by the Department-the amount of refund has increased by 27.2% and the number of refunds has increased by 17%. The total amount of refund issued in this Financial year till 11.12.2019 is Rs. 1.57 lakh crores as against Rs. 1.23 lakh crore in the corresponding period of FY 2018-19.

• Relaxation in the norms for Prosecution: In order to provide relief to taxpayers for small violations, it has been provided that the sanctioning authority of prosecution has to take approval of a collegium of two CCIT/DGIT rank officers for launching of prosecution in most of the cases except where the default exceeds Rs. 25 Lakhs in case of non-payment of TDS, wilful evasion of tax or failure to file return.

 

Ministry of Finance

Income Tax Department conducts search & survey operations on Share Brokers/Traders across India

Dated: 07 DEC 2019

On 3rd December 2019, the Income Tax Department carried out search and survey operations on certain share-brokers/traders who were involved in facilitating accommodation of profits/loss through reversal trades in illiquid stock optionsin Equity Derivative Segment and alsoCurrency Derivative Segment on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).  Over 39 locations spread across Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur, Delhi, NOIDA, Gurugram, Hyderabad andGhaziabad were covered.

The search/survey action has unravelled the entire modus-operandi which has been adopted by the share-brokers/traders to trade into the illiquid stock options in Equity Derivative Segment and thereby generate artificial losses/profit by executing reversal trades in a very short span of time. By this contrived methodology, the unscrupulous entities have secured desired profits/losses, which is estimated to be more than Rs. 3500 Crore. The search/survey action has also resulted into identification of the wrongful long-term capital gains taken in at least 3 penny stocks listed on the BSE, where the manipulated profits utilized by the beneficiaries aggregate to around Rs. 2000 Crore.

The search action has resulted into seizure of unaccounted cash of Rs. 1.20 Crore. The number of beneficiaries who have been benefitted by these manipulated transactions could be to the tune of a few thousand scattered across India and efforts are being made to identify them as also the corresponding quantum of income evaded. Incriminating evidence recovered during the course of actions is also being examined for determination of contravention of the various direct tax laws.

***

RM/ KMN

(Release ID: 1595426)