Businesses which report a higher income or revenues due to increased usage of digital payments following the demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will not trigger reopening of cases of past years, the income tax department informed in a circular. The Central Board of Direct Taxes sought to allay fears that tax men would resort to harassing businesses by reopening earlier cases where they had reported lower revenues. "By adopting the digital mode of payment, no financial transactions would remain undisclosed and consequently an enhanced turnover of business might get reflected in the books of accounts. Under the circumstances, an apprehension was raised by the business community that increased turnover in the current year may lead to reopening of earlier years' cases where the turnover was lower," the circular read. However, the circular categorically states that mere increase in turnover in a particular year due to use of digital payments cannot be the only reason that income has escaped assessment in earlier years. "Hence, I-T officers are advised not to reopen past assessments in cases, merely on the ground that the current year's turnover has increased." Mere suspicion is not an adequate ground for reopening of earlier years cases, it added. The latest circular applies to Section 147 of the I-T Act which permits an officer to reopen of past cases, generally up to the past four years, if they have reason to believe that they have escaped assessment. Tax scheme for undeclared income The Press Trust of…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...