Government of India

Ministry of Finance

Department of Revenue

Central Board of Direct Taxes

Dated: 11th October, 2019

PRESS RELEASE

Income Tax Department conducts searches in Karnataka

                The Income Tax Department conducted search on 9th October 2019 on a prominent business group in Karnataka which runs multiple educational institutions. During the course of the search, the modus operandi of conversion of seats which were originally to be allotted by merit through counselling by MCC maliciously into institutional quota seats through dropout system has been unearthed.

Incriminating evidence has been found in the search, substantiating conversion of seats, commission payments to brokers and sale of seats in exchange of receipt of cash. Evidences of use of multiple agents for conversion of MBBS and PG seats have also been found. Diversion of funds in the form of payment of on-money for the purpose of purchase of immovable assets for the benefit of trustees has also been established including finding of cash in possession of seller, commission in the hands of broker and strong written and audio evidences found in possession of the concerned parties. Evidences of handling of such cash generated, diversion for construction of hotels have also been found. Hawala transactions relating to movement of such cash have also been established. A total of Rs.4.22 crore of unaccounted cash has so far been found including Rs.89 lakh in the house of the main trustee.

Certain students whose names were used in conversion of seats have made statements establishing the modus operandi. Agents have admitted to have aided in sale of seats, brokers have admitted to be witness and accomplice to diversion of such cash generated.

Modus operandi of making cash deposits in the accounts of certain employees & their families and diversion of them to fixed deposits which are used to services loans taken by trustees has been unearthed. Evidence has further brought to light the fact that trustees have opened bank accounts in the names of their employees to deposit some of the capitation fee received in cash. Fixed deposits amounting to Rs. 4.6 crore in the names of 8 employees made in the above manner have been seized. It was further found that the interest from such benami fixed deposits have been used to service the loans taken by the trustees in their personal capacity.

Evidences also reveal undisclosed investments in real estate. Overall the total undisclosed income detected so far is around Rs.100 crore considering the cash donations received for 185 seats averaging Rs.50 lakh to Rs.65 lakh per seat and total seizure of undisclosed assets of Rs. 8.82 crore. Further investigations are in progress.

(Surabhi Ahluwalia)

Commissioner of Income Tax

(Media & Technical Policy)

Official Spokesperson, CBDT.

 

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Finance

Dated: 07 OCT 2019

Revenue Secretary inaugurates National e-Assessment Centre of IT Department

 

Revenue Secretary Shri Ajay Bhushan Pandey inaugurated National e-Assessment Scheme (NeAC) here today in the presence of CBDT Chairman Shri P.C. Mody and Members Shri P.K. Das, Shri Akhilesh Ranjan and Shri Prabhash Shankar.

While inaugurating the NeAC, Shri Pandey said that it is matter of great pride and achievement for the Income Tax Department to bring NeAC to life in a small span of time. Retracing the origins of NeAC in 2017, Shri Pandey lauded the IT Department for striving to achieve transparency with speed.

Shri Pandey said that with the launch of National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC), the Income Tax Department will usher in a paradigm shift in its working by introducing faceless e-assessment to impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process. He said that with NeAC, there would be no physical interface between the tax payers and the tax officers.

The setting up of NeAC of the Income Tax Department is a momentous step towards the larger objectives of better taxpayer service, reduction of taxpayer grievances in line with Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Digital India’ and promotion of Ease of Doing Business.

In the first phase, the Income Tax Department has selected 58,322 cases for scrutiny under the faceless e-Assessment Scheme 2019 and the e-notices have been served before 30th of September 2019 for the cases of Assessment Year 2018-19.

The taxpayers have been advised to check their registered e-filing accounts/ email ids and have been requested to furnish reply within 15 days. The Department hopes that with the ease of compliance for taxpayers, the cases would be disposed off expeditiously.

Benefits of Faceless Assessment:

• NeAC eliminates human interface between Assessing Officer and Assessee
• New System optimises the utilisation of resources through economies of scale
• NeAC introduces team based assessment with dynamic jurisdiction
• Ease of compliance for taxpayers
• Brings transparency and efficiency, thus improves quality of assessment and monitoring
• Functional specialisation as only one agency dealing with faceless assessment
• Expeditious disposal of cases
• Standardisation and quality management

About National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC) :

NeAC will be an independent office that will look after the work of e-Assessment scheme which is recently notified for faceless e-assessment for income tax payers. There would be a NeAC in Delhi to be headed by Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Pr.CCIT). There are 8 Regional e-Assessment Centres (ReAC) set up at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad which would comprise Assessment unit, Review unit, Technical unit and Verification units. Each ReAC will be headed by Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (CCIT). Cases for the specified work shall be assigned by the NeAC to different units by way of automated allocation systems. In view of the dynamic and all India jurisdiction of all officers of NeAC and ReAC, this kind of connective and collaborative effort of officers is likely to lead to better quality of assessments.

About Faceless e-Assessment: 

Centre Government had recently notified e-Assessment scheme to facilitate faceless assessment of income tax returns through completely electronic communication between tax officials and tax payers.

Under the new system of faceless e-Assessment, tax payers will receive notices on their registered emails as well as on registered accounts on the web portal www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in with real time alert by way of SMS on their registered mobile number, specifying the issues for which their cases have been selected for scrutiny. The replies to the notices can be prepared at ease by the tax payers at their own residence or office and be sent by email to the National e-Assessment Centre by uploading the same on the designated web portal.

This new initiative of faceless assessment is expected to increase ease of compliance for taxpayers as the cost and anxiety of taxpayers are likely to be greatly reduced. No human interface with the Department would be a game changer. This is another initiative by CBDT in the field of ease of compliance for our tax payers.

LINK: PPT Presentation for detailed information

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RM/KMN

 

 

FM to inaugurate National e-Assessment Centre of Income Tax Department Tomorrow

Shall usher introduction of Faceless e-Assessment in the Income Tax Department

New Initiative shall impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process

Dated: 06 OCT 2019

The Income Tax Department is ushering in a paradigm shift in its working by introducing faceless e-assessment to impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process. There would be no physical interface between the tax payers and the tax officers.

The setting up of National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC) of the Income Tax Department is a momentous step towards the larger objectives of better taxpayer service, reduction of taxpayer grievances in line with Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Digital India’ and promotion of ease of doing business.

Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman will inaugurate National e-Assessment Centre ( NeAC) in New Delhi tomorrow in the presence of Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs . Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary, Shri Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT will also be present . Officers of the Income Tax Department and other dignitaries shall also be linked through Multimedia Video Conferencing at Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.

Under the new system, tax payers have received notices on their registered emails as well as on registered accounts on the web portal www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in with real time alert by way of SMS on their registered mobile number, specifying the issues for which their cases have been selected for scrutiny. The replies to the notices can be prepared at ease by the tax payers at their own residence or office and be sent by email to the National e-Assessment Centre by uploading the same on the designated web portal.

This is another initiative by CBDT in the field of ease of compliance for our tax payers.

RM/KMN

(Release ID: 1587334)

 

Ministry of Finance

DIN system of CBDT launched ; About 17500 Communications with DIN Generated on First day

Dated: 01 OCT 2019

The Documentation Identification Number (DIN) system of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has come into existence from todaywiththe generation of about 17,500 communications with DIN on the very first day. This path breaking DIN system has been created as per the direction of Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman and from now onwards every CBDT communication will have to have a documentation identification number.

Revenue Secretary Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey said, “From today, any communication from Income Tax Department without a computer generated DIN, be it a notice, letter, order and summon or any other correspondence,would be treated as invalid and shall be non est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued. The DIN system would ensure greater accountability and transparency in tax administration.”

“Now from today onwards, all such communications with DIN would be verifiable on the e-filing portal and no communication would be issued manually without DIN except only if it is in the specified exceptional circumstances”, said Dr. Pandey.

It would be pertinent to mention here that while specifying such exceptional circumstances the CBDT Circular related to DIN dated 14.08.2019 says thatwhenever any such manual communication would be issued, it would be necessarily required to specify reason of issuing such a communication without DIN along with the date of obtaining written approval of the Chief Commissioner/Director General of Income Tax in a particular format. Any communication which is not in conformity of with the prescribed guidelines shall be treated as invalid and non est in law.

CBDT has specified that any communication issued manually under exceptional circumstances would have to be uploaded and regularised on the system portal within 15 days of its issuance.

CBDT has also stated that all pending assessment proceedings, where notices were earlier issued manually, prior to the DIN related Circular dated 14.08.2019 coming into existence, all such cases would be identified and notices so sent would be uploaded on ITBA by the end of this month, i.e., by 31st Oct 2019.

This is in pursuance of the directions by the Hon’ble Prime Minister in which he has asked the Department of Revenue to come up with specific measures to ensure that the honest taxpayers are not harassed and served better. It may be noted that earlier there have been some instances where it was not possible to maintain the audit trail of the manually issued communication which in some cases caused inconvenience to taxpayers sometime. However, with the present system of attaching a DIN to every notice or communication of CBDT would result in better services to taxpayers without any possible harassment.

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RM/KMN
(Release ID: 1586901)

 

Ministry of Finance

Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme 2019 -20

Dated: 30 SEP 2019

Government of India, in consultation withthe Reserve Bank of India, has decided to issue Sovereign Gold Bonds. The Sovereign Gold Bonds will be issued in six tranches from October 2019 to March 2020 as per the calendar specified below:

S. No.	Tranche	Date of Subscription	Date of Issuance
1	2019-20 Series V	October 07-11, 2019	October 15, 2019
2	2019-20 Series VI	October 21-25, 2019	October 30, 2019
3	2019-20 Series VII	December 02–06, 2019	December 10, 2019
4	2019-20 Series VIII	January 13-17, 2020	January 21, 2020
5	2019-20 Series IX	February 03-07, 2020	February 11, 2020
6	2019-20 Series X	March 02-06, 2020	March 11, 2020

The Bonds will be sold through Scheduled Commercial banks (except Small Finance Banks and Payment Banks), Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL), designated post offices, and recognised stock exchanges viz., National Stock Exchange of India Limited and Bombay Stock Exchange Limited.

The features of the Bond are:

Sl.No.	Item	Details
1	Product name	Sovereign Gold Bond 2019-20
2	Issuance	To be issued by Reserve Bank India on behalf of the Government of India.
3	Eligibility	The Bonds will be restricted for sale to resident individuals, HUFs, Trusts, Universities and Charitable Institutions.
4	Denomination	The Bonds will be denominated in multiples of gram(s) of gold with a basic unit of 1 gram.
5	Tenor	The tenor of the Bond will be for a period of 8 years with exit option after5thyear to be exercised on the interest payment dates.
6	Minimum size	Minimum permissible investment will be 1 gram of gold.
7	Maximum limit	The maximum limit of subscribed shall be 4 KG forindividual, 4 Kg for HUF and 20 Kg for trusts andsimilarentities per fiscal (April-March) notified by the Governmentfrom time to time. A self-declaration to this effect will beobtained. The annual ceiling will include bondssubscribed under different tranches during initial issuanceby Government and those purchased from the SecondaryMarket.
8	Joint holder	In case of joint holding, the investment limit of 4 KG will be applied to the first applicant only.
9	Issue price	Price of Bond will be fixed in Indian Rupees on the basis of simple average of closing price of gold of 999 purity, published by the India Bullion and Jewellers Association Limited for the last 3 working days of the week preceding the subscription period. The issue price of the Gold Bonds will be Rs.50 per gram less for those who subscribe online and pay through digital mode.
10	Payment option	Payment for the Bonds will be through cash payment (upto a maximum of Rs. 20,000) or demand draft or cheque or electronic banking.
11	Issuance form	The Gold Bonds will be issued as Government of India Stock under GS Act, 2006. The investors will be issued a Holding Certificate for the same. The Bonds are eligible for conversion into demat form.
12	Redemption price	The redemption price will be in Indian Rupees based on previous 3 working dayssimple average of closing price of gold of 999 purity published by IBJA.
13	Sales channel	Bonds will be sold through Commercial banks, Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL), designated post offices (as may be notified) and recognised stock exchanges viz., National Stock Exchange of India Limited and Bombay Stock Exchange, either directly or through agents.
14	Interest rate	The investors will be compensated at a fixed rate of 2.50 percent per annum payable semi-annually on the nominal value.
15	Collateral	Bonds can be used as collateral for loans. The loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is to be set equal to ordinary gold loan mandated by the Reserve Bank from time to time.
16	KYC documentation	Know-your-customer (KYC) norms will be the same as that for purchase of physical gold. KYC documents such as Voter ID, Aadhaar card/PAN or TAN /Passport will be required.Every application must be accompanied by the ‘PAN Number’ issued by the Income Tax Department to individuals and other entities.
17	Tax treatment	The interest on Gold Bonds shall be taxable as per the provision of Income Tax Act, 1961 (43 of 1961). The capital gains tax arising on redemption of SGB to an individual has been exempted. The indexation benefits will be provided to long term capital gains arising to any person on transfer of bond.
18	Tradability	Bonds will be tradable on stock exchanges within a fortnight of the issuance on a date as notified by the RBI.
19	SLR eligibility	Bonds acquired by the banks through the process of invoking lien/hypothecation/pledge alone, shall be counted towards Statutory Liquidity Ratio.
20	Commission	Commission for distribution of the bond shall be paid at the rate of 1% of the total subscription received by the receiving offices and receiving offices shall share at least 50% of the commission so received with the agents or sub agents for the business procured through them.

 

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RM
(Release ID: 1586762)