TRACKPAD

To give boost to the Digital India initiative of the government and provide better services to the tax payers via e-governance, the Income Tax Department has launched “e-Sahyog” project that will facilitate income tax payers. The pilot project has been launched by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, which furthers the department’s commitment to work in an e-environment and reduces the need for the taxpayer to physically appear before tax authorities. The “e-Sahyog” project launched on a pilot basis is aimed at reducing compliance cost, especially for small taxpayers. It will provide an online mechanism to resolve mismatches in income tax returns of those assesses, whose returns have been selected for scrutiny, without visiting the Income Tax Office.

The IT Department will provide an end to end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the tax assesses of the mismatch. The tax payers will simply need to visit the e-filing portal and log in with their user-ID and password to view mismatch-related information and submit online response on the issue. The responses submitted online by the taxpayers will be processed and if the response and other information are found satisfactory as per automated closure rules, the issue will be treated as closed. The tax payers can check the updated status by logging in to the e-filing portal. FM also inaugurated a drive to provide public service at peoples’ doorstep by holding “special PAN camps in remote areas”.

Committee to simplify the provisions of IT Act

The government has constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Justice R.V. Easwar, (Retd.), former Judge, Delhi High Court and former President, ITAT that will suggest about the changes to be brought in to simplify the provisions of the Income Tax Act. There are 10 other members in the committee. The overall objectives of committee are to study and identify the provisions of the Act which are leading to litigation due to different interpretations as well as to study and identify the provisions which are impacting the ease of doing business. It will also suggest alternatives and modifications to the existing provisions and areas so identified to bring about predictability and certainty in tax laws, without substantial impact on the tax base and revenue collection.

As far as modus operandi is concerned, the committee will put its draft recommendations in the public domain and after stakeholder consultations, the committee will formalize its recommendations. The committee can give its recommendations in batches. The first batch of recommendations will be submitted by January 31, 2016.

Mere transfer of title is exempted from Service Tax

Just to give clarity over the long standing issue relating to levy of Service Tax on sale of flats and dwellings, etc. after issue of occupancy certificate but before issue of completion certificate in areas under the jurisdiction of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (BMC), it has clarified that no Service Tax is payable on such cases. Service Tax authorities have conveyed that sale of flats and dwellings, where the entire consideration is received after issue of occupancy certificate by BMC that leads to mere transfer of title in immovable property, falls outside the definition of “Service” provided in Section 65B (44) of the Finance Act, 1994; so no Service Tax will be payable on such property transactions.