CBDT Chief Seeks Industry Suggestions on the New Income Tax Bill

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chief Ravi Agrawal sought the industry players to provide their recommendations on the new income tax bill which will be tabled in the Parliament this week.

The updated income tax bill shall substitute the 6-decade-old Income Tax Act, 1961, which has been created in 6 months and measures have been incurred to ease the language to make tax compliance more manageable for taxpayers and make it easier to read and comprehend.

It was mentioned by Agrawal that the new bill has been drafted to fulfil international standards. The new law has been made, as old provisions have been terminated, making it less cumbersome.

He sought the industry to furnish their recommendations once the new bill is introduced and ensured them that the recommendations shall be considered.

Agrawal concerning the updated IT returns (ITR-U) has mentioned in the last three years that nearly 90 lakh such returns were submitted. There were nearly 8500 crore additional revenue gathered.

In the budget speech, FM Nirmala Sitharaman cited that the time limit to submit the updated Income tax returns for any assessment year will be extended from the existing limit of 2 years to 4 years.

Also, Agrawal mentioned that the income tax department is taking a participative approach and is no longer following an adversarial approach.

He added that the tax department is changing its approach.

The tax department, Agrawal cited that, it follows a ‘PRUDENT’ approach where P stands for Proactive and professional, R (Rule based), U (User Friendly), D (Data-driven), E (Enabling environment), N (Non-intrusive), T (Transparency).