In the context of the COVID-19 situation and with a view to providing immediate relief to the business entities and individuals, it has been decided to issue all the pending income-tax refunds up to Rs. 5 lakh, immediately.
This would benefit around 14 lakh taxpayers.
It has also been decided to issue all pending GST and Custom refunds which would provide benefit to around 1 lakh business entities, including MSME.
Thus, the total refund granted will be approximately Rs. 18,000 crore.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures for extension of statutory and regulatory compliances in view of the corona virus pandemic spreading its wings and impacting the economy.
Allaying fears that there is no economic emergency in the country, FM said that the Economic Task Force will soon announce an economic relief package to deal with the impact of the corona virus pandemic on the economy.
These are largely in the area of ease of doing business, by providing reliefs in extension of due dates for compliances and reliefs from late fee and penalties, in view of the lock downs announced in several states and districts.
Income Tax
GST/Indirect Tax
Customs
Financial Services
Relaxations for 3 months
Corporate Affairs
Department of Commerce
In the union budget 2020, the following section 115BAC shall be inserted in the Income Tax Act, with effect from the 1st day of April, 2021, with new income tax slabs and lower rates. These income tax rates are optional and are available to those who are willing to forego some exemptions and some deductions.
Direct Taxes
1. Tax rate reduced for new companies to 22% and for manufacturing companies 15%
2. New simplified personal tax regime for Individual tax payers. The revised slab can be availed if they do not claim deductions and certain exemptions.
For income :
Upto 5,00,000 nil
Rs 5,00,000 -7,50,000: 10%
Rs 7,50,000 – 10,00,000 : 15%
Rs10,00,000 – Rs 12,50,000 20%
Rs 12,50,000- Rs 15,00,000 : 25%
More than Rs 15,00,000 : 30%
3. Companies not required to deduct dividend distribution tax and will be taxed only in the hands of the recipient. Parent company to be allowed deduction of dividend received subsidiary
4. Concessional tax rate of 15% extended to power generation companies
5. Investment made in Infrastructure and other specified sectors
6. Tax rate of 194LC at 5% for interest payment to non resident in respect of money borrowed or bond issued upto June 30,2023 and for 194LD at 5% for interest on borrowing from foreign institutional or qualified investor and municipal bonds
7. Interest payment on bonds listed on exchange by ILFS – 4%
8. Option to Cooperative societies to pay tax at 22% with no exemption or deduction. Exempt from alternative minimum tax
9. Affordable housing tax breaks extended by one year. Additional 1.5 lakhs tax benefit on interest paid on affordable housing loans to March 2021
10. Turnover threshold for tax audit raised to Rs 5 crore from Rs 1 crore
11. 100% tax concession to sovereign wealth funds on investment in infra projects
12. Income from Charitable institutions fully exempt from taxation. Donation to such institution allowed as deduction.
13. Registration of charity institutions to be made completely electronic, donations made to be pre-filled in IT return form to claim exemptions for donations easily.
14. Faceless appeals against tax orders on lines of faceless assessments
15. For tax payers who have appeals pending only disputed tax is to be paid by tax payer and no interest or penalty if the same is paid within March 31,2020. Post March 31,2020 certain amount levied uptill June 30,2020
16. Startup ESOP taxes deferred by 5 years
Other Areas
1. New scheme to provide subordinate debt to MSME
2. Decriminalise some norm violations in Companies Act
3. Increase the bank deposit insurance from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh
4. New system for instant allotment of PAN
5. A new scheme NIRVIK to be launched this year itself for exporters
6. A debt ETF consisting of government securities will be launched.
7. For NBFCs and HFCs, liqduity constraints will be addressed.
8. FPI Limit in corporate bonds will be raised to 15% from 9%.
9. LIC to be listed at stock exchanges
Two important changes in Income tax (TDS/TCS)
— TCS to be collected by seller whose turnover exceeds Rs. 10 cr. In previous year from each buyer on amount exceeding 50 lacs @0.1% for sale of goods.
-TDS rate u/s 194J for technical payment changed from 10% to 2% to avoid litigations in respect of 194J Vs 194C
While it may be commonplace in Uncle Sam’s country, India is slowly getting used to the idea of disclosing more information to the taxman. In the last five years, income tax return (ITR) forms have started asking for more details to ensure that your spending patterns match your tax return profile.
However, the department seeking details of a valid passport or foreign travel with spends of over ₹2 lakh has left many with a feeling of discomfort as it further complicates the filing process. Many experts also worry about the privacy and security issues. “Data protection law for individuals in our country is not like that in developed countries such as the US. Also, given that the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 is under consideration, many people are worried and skeptical when it comes to divulging so much information,” said Divya Baweja, partner, Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP, an accounting firm.
Whether asking for more information will bear fruit and result in better tax compliance continues to be a question mark. The fact remains that you need to provide additional details, for which you have to be on top of many things, including your spending patterns. Now, if you have spent more than ₹2 lakh on foreign travel or ₹1 lakh on electric bills in the current financial year (FY), you will need to furnish these details. The new ITR forms notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), for the upcoming assessment year (AY) 2020-21, require you to disclose such information. If your spending patterns don’t line up with your tax declarations, it may land you in hot water.
The objective is to gather more and more information and make the process of selecting cases for scrutiny easier.
New ITR Forms: ITR-1 & ITR4
ITR-1 which is also known as “Sahaj” can be used by an individual whose incomes primarily include salary income and whose total income does not exceed Rs.50 lakh during the FY. On the other hand ITR-4 can be used to file returns by resident individuals, Hindu Undivided Family (HUFs) and firms (other than LLP) having a total income of up to Rs.50 lakh from business and profession and filing return under presumptive taxation scheme.
There are two major changes in the ITR Forms – first, an individual taxpayer cannot file return either in ITR-1 or ITR4 if he is a joint-owner in house property, second, ITR-1 form is not valid for those individuals who have deposited more than Rs.1 crore in bank account or has incurred Rs2 lakh or Rs1 lakh on foreign travel or electricity respectively.
Additional info
So far, the government has notified ITR-1 and ITR-4 forms for tax filing for FY 2019-20 or AY 2020-21. However, you will have to wait to file returns as online utilities are not yet updated. The new ITR forms ask you to provide a valid passport number, if you have one; and details of your employer like name, nature of business, address and TAN.
The objective is to gather more and more information about an individual, which will help the tax department carry out specific enquries and make the process of selecting cases for scrutiny easier. “These alterations may be happening because the government is slowly moving towards e-assessments and is thus seeking greater clarification from taxpayers in the return itself to save time and costs,” said Shailesh Kumar, director, Nangia Andersen Consulting Pvt. Ltd, a business tax advisory firm.
Other experts echo the thought. “The changes reflects the continuing journey of the government towards simplification and automation. It has already started providing pre-filled return forms. These disclosures will help capture the complete details of taxpayers and the validation of their financial information, wherever such information is available from more than one source,” said Kuldip Kumar, partner and leader, personal tax, PwC, an accountancy firm.
Data is the new oil
In a computerised environment, tax returns are now filed online and data is something that the government wants to be best friends with to tackle the problem of tax evasion. At the front-end, it is seen as asking for more information from you, the tax payer. However, this isn’t the first time the ITR forms have been amended. Every year, CBDT notifies the forms carrying amendments in accordance with the Finance Act. The aim is to increase the tax base as only a tiny percentage of the population files returns. Also, among the people who file returns, about 40% show that they have no tax liability.
At the back-end, the government is taking steps to strengthen the compliance ecosystem. For instance, in 2004, as a measure to widen the tax base, the concept of Annual Information Return (AIR) filing was introduced. AIR is a statutory requirement where mutual funds, institutions issuing bonds and registrars or sub-registrars, and so on are required to record and report high-value financial transactions of individuals to the tax department.
In 2006, a project for enabling e-filing of ITR was launched. Further, in 2007, the government launched integrated taxpayer data management system (ITDMS). Under this system, data from multiple sources is collected in a complex process for drawing a complete profile of the taxpayer. A non-filers monitoring system (NMS), focusing mainly on non-filers with potential tax liabilities, was also initiated by the department. The system assimilates and analyses in-house information as well as transactional data received from various sources like ITR and AIR filed by third parties and other departments to identify people who had undertaken high value financial transactions but did not file their returns.
Taking it further, in the year 2017, the tax department initiated “project insight” to strengthen the non-intrusive information-driven approach for improving tax compliance and effectively utilizing information in tax administration. Under this project, an integrated data warehousing and business intelligence platform, which includes Income Tax Transaction Analysis Centre (INTRAC) and Compliance Management Centralized Processing Centre (CMCPC), has been set up. According to the department’s website, INTRAC leverages data analytics in tax administration and performs tasks related to data integration, compliance management, enterprise reporting and research support. CMCPC uses campaign management approach (consisting of emails, SMS, reminders, outbound calls and letters) to support voluntary compliance.
Will disclosures help?
The government wants you to divulge more information for better scrutiny. However, some experts feel that this will only increase the burden on the tax payers, who are already struggling with a very complicated system of tax filing. “This is overreach and intrusion, and it’s a wasteful exercise. For instance, many people from India go to gulf countries for labour work; if such people get notices, they won’t know how to respond. There is a lot of duplication. The department has already acquired most of this information through AIR filed by different entities,” said Himanshu Sinha, partner, Trilegal, a law firm.
While giving out more information makes things more difficult, such information will be able to trace non-filers and is intended to bring more compliances.
Taxpayers get one more chance to clear their tax dues.
The CBDT has extended till January 31 the last date for taxpayers to avail a “one-time” facility to apply for compounding of income tax offences, an order issued on Friday said.
The earlier deadline was December 31, 2019.
In I-T parlance, compounding means that the taxman does not file a prosecution case against the offender or tax evader in court in lieu of payment of due taxes and surcharges.
The decision to extend the last date was taken “in view of references received from field formations, including requests made by ICAI (Institute of Chartered Accountants of India) chapters wherein it has been brought to the notice of the CBDT that the taxpayers could not avail the benefit of the one-time relaxation window due to genuine hardships,” the order issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT) said.
The order was accessed by PTI.
Final opportunity
Hence, the order stated, the date has been extended to give a final opportunity to such taxpayers and reduce the pendency of existing prosecution cases before the courts.
Applications, as per the procedure of the scheme, are to be filed before the appropriate competent authority that is either a principal chief commissioner or a chief commissioner or a principal director general or director general of the Income-Tax Department “on or before” January 31, 2020.
The CBDT, while launching the scheme in September last year, had said that this “one-time measure” is being undertaken to mitigate unintended hardship to taxpayers in deserving cases and to reduce the pendency of existing prosecution cases before the courts.
“Cases have been brought to the notice of CBDT where the taxpayers could not apply for compounding of the offence as the compounding application was filed beyond 12 months,” it had said.
The riders
The relaxation, however, shall not be available in respect of an offence which is generally or normally not compoundable, indicating instances of serious tax evasion, financial crime, terror financing, money laundering, possession of illegal foreign assets, benami properties or conviction by a court in the past.
The CBDT circular added that application for compounding of an income tax offence can be filed in cases where: Prosecution proceedings are pending before any court of law for more than 12 months or any compounding application for an offence filed previously was withdrawn by the applicant solely for the reason that such application was filed beyond 12 months or any compounding application for an offence had been rejected previously solely for technical reasons.
The CBDT, which frames policy for the tax department, had earlier said that compounding of offences is “not a matter of right” and the department can extend such a relief only in certain cases.
This will be done keeping in view factors like “conduct of the person, the nature and magnitude of the offence on the context of the facts and circumstances of each case,” it had said.
Direct credit to bank accounts of taxpayers is the only way the income tax department credits tax refunds.
Filed your income tax return (ITR) for the assessment year (AY) 2019-20 on time but yet not receive your refund? Don’t worry. You may just have furnished incorrect bank details. Of course, there may be other reasons for the delay, though this is the most prominent.
Earlier, tax refund was issued either in the form of a cheque or directly credited to bank accounts. However, direct credit to bank accounts of taxpayers is the only one mode through which the income tax department credits tax refunds. These accounts need to be pre-validated and linked to the taxpayers’ permanent account number (PAN) from this assessment year.
Taxpayers are entitled to claim a tax refund if, during the year, excess tax has been deducted from your income. This may happen if there are multiple incomes. But, you have to apply for a refund while filing your ITR for a particular financial year.
Track the status
You can check the status of your refund. A few years ago, to find the status of a tax refund one had to approach the assessing officer. But now, you can do so in minutes. After filing returns, a taxpayer will need to wait utmost for a few months to receive the refund.
You can visit these websites to check their tax refund status: www.incometaxindia.gov.in or www.tin-nsdl.com. Go to the “Status of Tax Refunds” tab, give your PAN number and the assessment year for which you wish to track the status of refund. A message will pop up, stating the mode of payment, a reference number, status and the date of refund. Of course, these will happen only if the refund has been processed.
However, if there is any problem due to which tax refund not received, there would be a suitable message. For e.g., if the message is “refund unpaid,” it could be due to the incorrect bank account details (account number or IFS Code) you may have submitted to the income tax department. Verify the bank account details submitted earlier.
You need to provide information on all the savings and current accounts held at any time in India during the previous year, according to income tax rules. Details of accounts that have been inoperative for at least three years or more are not required.
The taxpayer is supposed to provide one bank account in which she/he wants the tax refund credited. You have to provide this detail even if there is no refund. Bank details include the name of the bank, account number, and the 11-digit IFS Code or details of the international bank account number (IBAN) in case you have a foreign bank account. Not providing any bank account details will result in refunds not getting credited.
Are you wondering why you have not received your income tax refund yet despite having filed your income tax return (ITR) within the due date for assessment year (AY) 2019-20? There could be various reasons for the same. However, a common reason could be furnishing incorrect bank account details in the ITR form.
While tax refund was earlier issued either in the form of cheque or direct credit to bank accounts, the income tax department now credits tax refunds only in the form of direct credit in the bank accounts of taxpayers. Moreover, from this AY, these accounts need to be pre-validated and linked to the taxpayers’ permanent account number (PAN).
You are eligible to claim a refund if excess income tax has been deducted from your income during the year. This could happen in cases of multiple incomes or where tax is deducted at source (TDS). The income tax department does refund this excess tax paid, but you have to apply for it when filing your ITR for the relevant financial year.
Track the status
In case you have not received your refund yet, you first need to check the status of your refund. “About five to six years ago, one had to approach the assessing officer to find out the status of refunds. Now one can check it online within minutes,” said Amit Maheshwari, partner, Ashok Maheshwary and Associates LLP, a chartered accountancy firm. Except in few cases, now most people get their refunds in a few months of filing returns, added Maheshwari.
You can track the status of your refund on www.incometaxindia.gov.in or www.tin-nsdl.com. Click on “Status of Tax Refunds” tab, enter your PAN and the AY for which you want to track the refund. If the refund has been processed, a message will pop up, stating the mode of payment, a reference number, status and date of refund.
However, if there is an issue because of which refund has not been issued or declined, the message will say so. For instance, if the message states “refund unpaid”, it could be because the bank account details (account number or IFS Code) that you have submitted to the income tax department are wrong. In that case, check your bank account details you have mentioned in your ITR.
Bank account information
According to income tax rules, you are supposed to provide details of all the savings and current accounts held by you at any time in India during the previous year, while filing your returns. It is not mandatory to provide details of dormant accounts which have not been operational for more than three years. However, “if the income from all the bank accounts has been duly included though the details of the account itself may have been omitted, no penalty may be leviable in such cases,” said Maheshwari.
If you have more than one bank account, you are required to indicate the account in which you would like to get your refund credited, irrespective of whether you have a refund or not. Bank details include the name of the bank, account number, and the 11-digit IFS Code of the bank or details of international bank account number (IBAN) in case you have a foreign bank account.
Taxpayers who filed returns for AY2019-20 were also required to ensure that the bank account chosen for the refund is pre-validated with the e-filing account and linked with their PAN.
Failure to provide any of the above mentioned details may result in the refund not getting credited.
Making correction
If you find you have made a mistake in providing your bank account details, you have the option to update it, before placing a request for re-issue of refunds.
Remember that you can update your bank account details only in case where your return has been processed and your refund was failed or not credited in your bank account because of an issue with your bank account details.
In such a case, you need to modify your account details and place a request for reissue of refund. It can be done online by logging into the e-filing portal, www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in, with your user ID and password. Next, go to “My Account” and then click on “Refund re-issue request”. Follow the steps and enter the new bank account number or make a correction in the already mentioned bank details and submit the request.
Before doing so, make sure this account is linked with your PAN and is pre-validated. In order to link your bank account with PAN, you need to visit your bank’s branch with a copy of PAN. It is a simple process and does not take much time. Once you link your bank account with PAN, pre-validate the bank account through the income tax e-filing account. Log on to e-filing accounts, go to “profile setting” and choose which bank you want to pre-validate. You will need to provide information like bank name, bank account number, IFS Code, mobile and email ID to validate your bank account.
Once you update the bank account and place a request for reissue of refunds, it will most likely get credited to your account in a few days.