Centralized Processing Center, Bengaluru
Income Tax Department
Advisory
Bengaluru, 16th April, 2018
Sub: Cautionary Advisory on Reports of tax evasion by under-reporting income or inflating deductions/Exemptions by salaried taxpayers.
The Income Tax Department has from time to time issued advertisements requesting taxpayers to report their correct income in their Income Tax Returns.
In this connection, the attempt salaried taxpayers to under-report income or inflate deductions aided and abetted by unscrupulous intermediaries has been noted with concern. Such offences are punishable under various penal and prosecution provisions of the Income Tax Act.
The processing of Income Tax Returns by CPC-Bangalore is done in an automated rule based manner to ensure world class taxpayer services for issuance of refunds in an efficient manner. The CPC Bangalore operates as a back office with no human interface with the taxpayer.
The Income Tax Department has an extensive risk analysis system aimed at identifying persons who are non-compliant and aim to subvert the trust based system envisioned while processing of ITRs at CPC Bangalore. In all such cases of high risk, the Department may examine and verify the details submitted by taxpayers in their ITR,subsequent to processing of returns in CPC.
If the Department notices any fraudulent claims in the returns, such tax payers may be punishable under various provisions of the Income Tax Act. This may also delay issuance of refunds in such cases.
Taxpayers are, therefore, strictly advised not to fall prey to false promises or mis-advice by unscrupulous intermediaries and submit wrong claims in their ITRs, which would be treated as cases of tax evasion. In the cases of such wrong claims by Government / PSU employees, reference would be made to the concerned vigilance division for action under conduct rules.
Department may also prosecute the intermediaries and abettors under relevant sections of the Income Tax Act and may refer such cases to other law enforcement agencies for appropriate action. Hence, the Department also advises all intermediaries to strictly confine their advice to taxpayers within the four corners of the Income Tax Act.
This advisory is being issued with the approval of Pr DGIT (Systems), CBDT.
It is advisable that deductions claimed under chapter VI -A of income tax act 1961 should be verified and certified by some legal practitioner. Thereafter one can say fraudulent claim of deductions under said chapter may be stopped.
It is appreciable that advisory is given to salaried employees where the income tax is recovered by the HR/Management as required.
our kind authority to issue open advisory to Govt, corporate bodies , merchant associations, independent shop owners etc to collect/deduct taxes as per rules and remit in time.
It is observed that banks and corporate though deduct IT every month but remit the same to treasury once in three/six months. I am a pensioner who desires to submit my return during April every year but could not do so because Form24AS is only up to December..
The CBDT authorities to verify such delays as it is given to understand direct taxes collected to be remitted by 7th of the succeeding month.