The Chartered Accountants in India wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi asking to hold back income tax officials instructed to take “all possible actions” to plug revenue-shortfall.
A letter jointly issued by the Bombay Chartered Accountants’ Society, Chartered Accountants Association Ahmedabad, Chartered Accountants Association Surat, Karnataka State Chartered Accountants’ Association and Lucknow Chartered Accountants’ Society requested to rein in tax officials who have been directed to take “all possible actions” to recover tax amid a shortfall in revenue collection.
The CBDT Chief, the apex direct tax body, issued instructions to all principal chief income tax commissioners (CITs) across India to take “all possible action” immediately to boost the collection of direct taxes, including tax recovery.
“Such pressures invariably end up in unreasonable and harsh measures being taken to the detriment of taxpayers. Such a situation would be in sharp contrast to the stated motto of the government of ushering in a taxpayer-friendly regime”, it noted.
“In this background, we wish to request the Honourable Finance Minister and the Honourable Prime Minister to instruct the CBDT and the ground level officers of the income-tax department to not take any action which is not in the larger interest of the taxpaying community”, the release noted.
The letter also said that the government must follow the process of law if at all the recovery measures are to be adopted.
According to the release there are thousands of cases across India where demands may have been raised due to mismatch in the credit of TDS as perform 26AS and as per income tax portal for various valid reasons; the tax demand could also be because of pending disposable of rectification application for giving effect to orders to Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) and Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (TAT). Many a time the tax demand is seen pending due to non-intimation of manual rectification carried out by assessing officer.
