CA. M. Lakshmanan
At the end of May the Income Tax Return forms are released for the Assessment Year 2015-16 and same been held back by finance minister due to complicated nature of Return Forms. It was further informed by the CBDT that department will release new simplified ITR forms with return filing utility by 3rd week of June 2015.
If an assessee has failed to pay 90% of Income Tax payable as Advance Tax within the due dates and even if he was ready, it would not have been possible for him to file the return till May since the relevant form are not yet ready. If the assessee pays the balance tax as ‘Self- assessment Tax’ now i.e. in the month of June the CPC will charge interest under section 234B till the month of filing the return and will raise demand. Since it is the fault of the department the assessee should not be peanlised. Hence suitable instruction/notification may be issued immediately to waive the interest for the months of April & May for all assesses who have to pay interest u.s 234B. Since the due date of filing return has been extended from 31st July to 31st August, interest 234A need not be paid for the returns being filed in till 31.08.2015 and for those who files on or after 01.09.2015 interest need not be paid for the month of August. The various softwares used for filing returns have to be modified accordingly.
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Sir,
Certainly I agree. Further, I got a doubt why the return forms not finalized till now for the assessment year 2015-16, in fact the Finance Act 2015 was approved by the parliament long back therefore, all the provisions which were amended known to the department long back and they shall be taken care at that time.
When the last date for filing was revised to 5th August 2013, the electronic version of forms were not modified immediately with the result that anyone filing returns on line between 1st August and 5th August 2013 was forced to pay interest for late filing of return. Even though on final assessment this interest was refunded to the assessee, this was an unnecesary work for the Department. There might have been omissions on the part of the Department too. It is hoped the forms would be suitably amended BEFORE RELEASE this year and the tax payers saved of the botheration of having to pay more and then ask for refunds.
I prefectly agreed with your views, Gentleman !
Sir, it is very genuine request and the FM and the CBDT has to act upon the matter at the earliest to avoid hardship for bonafide tax payers.
Very reasonable request for waiver of 234B interest and the Government and the beurocrats should understand and take into consideration the genuine difficulties and hardships of the taxpayers of no fault of their action.