CBDT chief urges industry to provide feedback on new income tax bill

Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chief Ravi Agrawal on Feb 3 asked industry players to give their suggestions on the new income tax bill, which will be tabled in Parliament this week.

The new income tax bill, which will replace the six decade old Income Tax act, 1961, has been drafted within six months and efforts have been made to simplify the language to make tax compliance easier for taxpayers and make it easier to read and understand.

Agrawal said that the new bill has been drafted in such a way that it meets international standards.

Also, the new law has been made concise, as old provisions have been removed, making it less bulky.

He asked the industry to give their suggestions once the new bill is introduced and assured them that the suggestions would be looked into.

With regard to updated I-T returns (ITR-U), Agrawal said in the last three years about 90 lakh such returns were filed. Around Rs 8,500 crore additional revenues were garnered.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech had said that the time limit to file updated ITRs for any assessment year will be extended from the current limit of two years to four years.

Agrawal also said the income tax department is adopting a "participative" approach and is no longer following an "adversarial" approach.

"The approach of the tax department is changing," he said.

The tax department, Agrawal said, it following 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).

(PTI)