Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry, in association with Ahmedabad Branch of WIRC of ICAI, Chartered
Accountants Association, All Gujarat Federation of Tax Consultants, Income Tax Bar Association and Tax Advocates
Association organized an Open House on Income Tax on today. Shri A.K. Jaiswal, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Gujarat), Madam Asha Agarwal, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax - Il and Shri R.K. Srivastava, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax -TDS, Gujarat along with their esteemed team of commissioners remained present and respond to the queries of taxpayers.
In his welcome Speech, Shri Shailesh Patwari, President of GCCI, admired the way income tax department sympathetically responded to the queries of members and also expressed their concerns about various issues that a tax payer faces while filing tax returns in earlier Open House Sessions held at GCCI.
In his address to the industry, Shri A. K. Jaiswal, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, urged to utilize maximum their portal of grievances on Gujarat Govt website. As on date only 30 to 40 grievances are submitted. They requested to utilize the portal on a maximum basis. He also told the house to convey their genuine issues to higher authorities. He told that impact of GST on direct taxes will be revolutionary. He also conveyed that the unaccounted sales / unaccounted purchases / unaccounted expenses will disappear slowly and will become history. He assured that certain policy matters which can't be decided by the dept., will be taken up with the board.
In response to one of the queries, CCIT — TDS Shri R. K. Srivastava explained that compounding is up to the assessee and department official can't force for compounding, It is a facility given to assessee.
For the matter of payment of 20% of the demand till disposal of first appeal, department assured that at the discretion of PCIT, in genuine cases, payment of 20% can be reduced. The house also complained that the department is issuing lengthy questionnaires seeking voluminous information irrelevant to the aspects identified in the scrutiny. The CCIT told to inform them in case specific items.
Madam Agarwal, CCIT, told the house that w.eufu 1st April, 2018, there will be e-scrutiny / face less scrutiny which will instil confidence in the assessee. She also requested to all the dignitaries and members to motivate small tax payers to pay tax and file their return in time.
The dept confessed while one of the query of charitable trust raised that dept is not having data for 12AA certificates issued in earlier years and therefore can't reissue 12AA, even though the trust has its 12AA registration number. However, a trust can apply a fresh for 12AA, and there will not be any sec.147 proceedings for not having
12AA.
The dept. also resolved on spot queries of audience.
