No Due Date Extension for filing Income Tax – CBDT

CBDT confirms News of Income Tax Return filing due date extension in Social Media is Fake

 

CBDT – extension in due date for non-tax audit cases is fake and there are no such plans to extend this deadline beyond 31st July, 2018

CIRCULAR No.4/2018

 

F.No.370889/25/2018
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Direct Taxes

 

New Delhi, Dated 21st July, 2018

 

Order under section 139(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’)

This Circular is issued in pursuant to 139(1) of the Tax Act, 1961 is to clarify that rumors spreading across in media regarding extension in due date for non-tax audit is fake and no such plans to extend this deadline beyond 31st July, 2018. The department already received over 1 crore returns filed electronically.

As per Section 234F of the Income Tax Act, from 1st April 2018, the penalty for late filing income tax return would be as

(a) five thousand rupees, if the return is furnished on or the 31st day of December of the assessment year;

(b) ten thousand rupees in any other case:

Provided further that if the total income of the person not exceed five lakh rupees, the fee payable under this section shall not exceed one thousand rupees. Therefore, the assessees are hereby asked to file their ITRs before the due date to avoid the penalty.

 

(Sanyam Suresh Joshi)

DCIT, CBDT

Copy to:

1. PS to FM/OSD to FM/PS to MoS(F)/OSD to MoS(F)
2. PS to Secretary (Revenue)
3. Chairman, CBDT
4. All Members, CBDT
5. All Pr. DGsIT/Pr. CCsIT
6. All Joint Secretaries/CsIT, CBDT
7. Directors/Deputy Secretaries/Under Secretaries of CBDT
8. DIT (RSP&PR)/Systems, New Delhi
9. The C&AG of India (30 copies)
10. The JS & Legal Adviser, Ministry of Law & Justice, New Delhi
11. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India
12. All Chambers of Commerce
13. CIT (M&TP), Official Spokesperson of CBDT
14. O/o Pr. DGIT (Systems) for uploading on official website

Source: CBDT_Circular

ICAI UDIN aims to address concerns of CAs with respect to forgery and fake use of name by Non CAs.

ICAI have launched Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN) facility which is a unique number, which will be generated by the system for every document certified/ attested by a Chartered Accountant and registered with the UDIN portal available at https://udin.icai.org/ with effect from 1st July 2018.

It has been noticed that financial statements and documents were being certified/attested by third persons, in lieu of Chartered Accountants. As these statements are being relied upon by the authorities as true statements and certificates, UDIN can be generated by a practicing CA by registering his/her documents/ certificates on UDIN Portal for verification.

A practicing Chartered Accountant can generate a UDIN for certificate/ document attested by him either in individual capacity or as a partner.

At present, this facility is recommendatory. But ICAI is mulling to make the same compulsory in near future, so as to curb the menace of fake or forged documents.

No change is possible in the data already registered by a Chartered Accountant in the online system. Therefore, members are requested to thoroughly check the details in preview option before submission of their application.

Information filled in can be edited/ modified any number of times before the submission. But once it is submitted, it cannot be edited.

The UDIN once generated can be withdrawn or cancelled with narration. Hence if any user search for this UDIN, appropriate narration indicated by Member with the date of revoke will be displayed for reference.

 

 

Link: UDIN for Practicing CAs

GST payers can move jurisdictional tax officer to change username, password

 

Taxpayer would be required to approach the concerned jurisdictional tax officer to get the password for the GST Identification Number (GSTIN) allotted to the business

The Finance Ministry on Thursday said that GST registrants can approach jurisdictional tax officer with valid documents to change the e-mail and mobile number recorded against their GST identification number (GSTIN).

 

The revenue department had received complaints from taxpayers that the intermediaries who were authorised by them to apply for registration on their behalf had used their own e-mail and mobile number during the process.

 

These intermediaries are not sharing the user details with the taxpayers.

 

“With a view to address this difficulty of the taxpayer, a functionality to update e-mail and mobile number of the authorised signatory is available in the GST system.

 

“The e-mail and mobile number can be updated by the concerned jurisdictional tax authority of the taxpayer,” the ministry said in a statement.

 

Taxpayer would be required to approach the concerned jurisdictional tax officer to get the password for the GSTIN allotted to the business. Taxpayers can check jurisdiction through ‘Search Taxpayer’ option available on GST portal.

 

Taxpayer would be required to provide valid documents to the tax officer as proof of his/her identity and to validate the business details related to his GSTIN. Following this, the officer would authenticate the activity and enter the new e-mail address and mobile number provided by the taxpayer.

 

After uploading of the documents, tax officer will reset the password for GSTIN in the system and username and temporary password reset will be communicated to the e-mail address as entered by the officer.

 

Taxpayer would then have to login on GST portal using the username and temporary password e-mailed to him. The username and password can now be changed by the taxpayer.

 

Source: Business Standard

GST monthly revenue touches Rs 1 lakh crore for first time; govt credits better compliance

The government announced today that the GST revenue for the month of April has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore – a first since GST was rolled out in July last year. As mentioned by the Ministry of Finance, the total gross GST revenue collected in April is Rs 1,03,458 crore.

Out of that CGST (Central GST) amounted to Rs 18,652 crore, while SGST (State GST) amounted to Rs 25,704 crore. IGST (Integrated GST) stood at Rs 50,548 crore, including Rs 21,246 crore that was collected on imports, and cess at Rs 8,554 crore, including Rs 702 crore collected on imports.

As mentioned in ANI, the finance ministry also noted that the central and state governments earned a total revenue of Rs 32,493 crore in CGST and Rs 40,257 in SGST, after settlement in April.

Moreover, the ministry noted that out of 87.12 lakh, 60.47 lakh GSTR 3B returns were filed for March till April 30. That makes 69.5% of the eligible proportion. The ministry also said that 11.47 lakh out of 19.31 lakh composition dealers filed their quarterly return (GSTR 4), amounting to 59.40%. In total Rs 579 crore in taxes were paid, which is included in the aforementioned GST revenue figure.

The ministry said, “The buoyancy in the tax revenue of GST reflects the upswing in the economy and better compliance. However, it is usually noticed that in the last month of the financial year, people also try to pay arrears of some of the previous months. Therefore, this month’s revenue cannot be taken as a trend for the future.”

The recently introduced e-way bill might be the reason behind the sudden spike in GST revenues. E-way bill, which is generated for consignments moving inter-state or intra-state was rolled out in April. The inter-state e-way bill was introduced in April 1, while the intra-state one was pushed to April 15.

The GST Council is scheduled to meet on May 4 next.

Source: Business Today

How blockchain will fundamentally change our lives in future

 

Blockchain has the potential and can be implemented across diverse sectors such as banking, education, and health.

The use of the internet has undergone rapid evolution in a matter of a few decades.

In the 1990s, the internet was described as “a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents” or simply put, ‘The Internet of Information’ which was primarily used to access data resources and services administered on the web browsers.

Back then, no one would have thought how it would fundamentally change our daily lives in the future. It has rapidly evolved from a platform to gather information to a space where we can shop, bank and communicate. The digital revolution has made the world realise the value of the internet and its implementations.

So, today we are gradually moving towards what Canadian strategist Don Tapscott calls ‘The Internet of Value’; that is the fountainhead of digital assets. Blockchain, which allows us to enable the exchange of any asset across the globe in real-time, ranging from stocks and bonds to music and art, is the next inevitable step in the global progress towards ‘The Internet of Value’.

Various applications of the internet have been made possible which are efficient like peer-to-peer money transfer, because internet reduces the transactional and communication cost to a bare minimum. This is the same force driving the new platforms that have emerged to deliver goods and services at levels of efficiency previously unimaginable, and blockchain is leading the revolution in redefining the new-age internet.

Like a traditional ledger, blockchain is essentially a record of transactions. These transactions can be any movement of money, goods or secure data — for example, a purchase at a supermarket, or the assignment of an Aadhar number. It works in three basic steps. First, it gathers data that the user has provided in forms of smart contracts, transactions IDs. Second, it orders the received data into blocks and finally chains them together securely using cryptography making it decentralised and accessible via any computer/mobile device across the network.

Now the question here is why do we need it? What is it that will change the way groceries are bought, stocks are purchased, money is transferred, bills are paid, and land deeds are made? The answer possibly can be the demand for trust and security emerging from both people and enterprises alike. Blockchain best serves these purposes as the trust factor is native to the medium. For example, if you are transferring money online to your friend, then your medium becomes the internet and to secure your transfer, a clever programming code is written. The same concept is applied by blockchain, but the security is made more secure by cryptography.

Blockchain has the potential and can be implemented across diverse sectors such as banking, education, and health. For instance, we keep our savings, assets and cash with banks because they are trustworthy and secure. However, their data is centralised, making them quite prone to cybercriminals that can bring the entire banking system to a halt. Now consider a person working abroad who wants to send a remittance to his family back home but has to encounter multiple clearances before his family receives it. With blockchain technology, the concept of crypto currency comes into picture, thus resulting in an open-access registry of monetary flows which makes the intermediation of financial institutions unnecessary and even costs less.

Second, in the field of healthcare, while big data analytics and artificial intelligence are simplifying healthcare delivery by smartly diagnosing the diseases from the patterns of numerous plugged-in electrocardiograms, blockchain is turning out to be a perfect platform for recording the medical attention of a patient and identifying a trend from the data recorded. Consider health card: A database which can be perceived as your health identity as it carries your entire medical history. Such technologies can find effective application in reducing information asymmetries within the healthcare and insurance markets by providing the most accurate data on patients.

Finally, blockchain can reorient the education system by delivering academic transparency. It can build an e-portfolio of academic credentials which has your test scores since the day you entered school. Paying for school fee in crypto currency — which is decentralised — from anywhere around the world on a secured network is commendable. Hence, this multi-trillion-dollar industry of education is indeed revolutionising.

Also, if implemented in government operations, blockchain will help break down barriers built from bureaucracy and corruption by providing a means to bypass existing power structures. It could be used to transform the way charities are created and regulated. By implementing a transparent system of transactions that include deposits of cash, transfers of donation and expenses spending will bring about a paradigm shift on how rules are enforced for these organisations.

Moreover, this technology has the competence to revamp the present system by automating manual processes, eradicating frauds and controlling the issues for authorisation. Its implementation across diverse sectors can be a solution to the most foundational problems of mankind. Hence, blockchain could be the perfect platform to transform a knowledge-driven economy into a digital-inclusive society.

GSTR-3B may be extended till June, simplified return forms on cards

The last date for filing initial GSTR-3B returns for a month is the 20th of the subsequent month.

The GST Council in its meeting on Saturday is likely to extend the deadline for filing of simplified sales return GSTR-3B by three months till June.

The Council, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising his state counterparts, is also expected to finalise a simplified return filing procedure for businesses registered under Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.

“The new return filing system, if agreed upon by the Council, would take about 3 months to be implemented. Till then GSTR-3B could continue,” an official told PTI.

The 26th GST Council meet is slated on March 10.

Simplified sales return GSTR-3B was introduced in July, the month of GST roll out, to help businesses to file returns easily in the initial months of GST roll out. This was to be followed with filing of final returns — GSTR – 1, 2 and 3.

With businesses complaining of difficulty in invoice matching while filing final returns as well as complications in GSTN systems, the GST Council in November last year extended GSTR-3B filing requirement till end of March, 2018, and did away with filing of purchase return GSTR-2 and final return 3.

“GSTR-3B filing system has stabilised and businesses are comfortable. So, businesses can continue to pay taxes by filing 3B till the time new return filing system is put in place,” the official added.

The last date for filing initial GSTR-3B returns for a month is the 20th of the subsequent month.

The GST Council had in January entrusted Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi led GoM to work out a simplified return filing process so that businesses can fill up only a single form to file returns under GST.

The group of ministers met last month to work out a simplified return form, but the meeting remained inconclusive.

In the GoM meet, the Centre and state officials presented their model for return simplification, while Nandan Nilekani also made his presentation. The idea is GST return form should be simplified, it should ideally be one return every month, Modi had said.

About 8 crore GST returns have been filed so far on GST Network portal since implementation of GST on July 1.

In absence of anti-evasion measures and invoice matching, the GST collections have declined since July.

As per official data available, in January 57.78 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed, which fetched Rs 86,318 crore revenue to the exchequer.

For December 56.30 lakh GSTR-3B were filed which fetched Rs 86,703 crore revenue to the exchequer, while in November 53.06 lakh returns were filed with total revenue of Rs 80,808 crore.

Collections topped Rs 95,000 crore in the initial month of July.

Source: The Economic Times