File Tax Audit Report and Don’t Wait For Introduction of ITRs- A.Y. 2015-16

The Tax Audits u/s 44AB for the assessment 2015-16 pertaining to the financial year 2014-15 are under progress and in some cases audit report are complete and ready for uploading. Generally we are accustomed to file TAR and ITR simultaneously but since the law makers are still not able to introduce the formats of most of the ITRs and further the utility to E-file the ITRs is still not issued and it is not certain when these forms and their utilities will be made available .

Now this is a recurring problem from year to year and it is a big question that when the Financial year is ended on 31^st march then why an assessee cannot file his ITR on 1^st April and why so much time is taken to introduce the ITRs. Another big question is that what is the need of introducing New ITRs every year?

See here in relation to taxation both Direct and Indirect Taxes, the declared policy of the Government is “Simplification” but the lawmakers are always busy in making the ITRs more complicated and in zeal of introducing something new and something more complicated the format of ITRs are always delayed and causing a big problem to the assessee and professionals like us.

Once the formats of the ITRs are issued, the utility of uploading them on the IT site will take some more time hence one cannot say with certainty that how much time is still required to enable us and the assessee to file his ITR.

This is very big problem and our law makers can only solve it but till date is it wise to held up the Tax audit report for want of ITRs? See here filing of ITR and TAR are separate issues and ITRs are issued for a particular year Assessment year. It is specifically mentioned in the Rule 12 of the Income tax rules 1962 that ITRs issued once are for a particular Assessment year and further the formats of ITRs are also mentioned the assessment year in the format itself for which they are applicable. So for every assessment year there will be a separate ITR format and it’s utility is also separate and at present no format/ utility for assessment year 2015-16 is available for online filing of returns.

No such problem is attached with the Tax Audit report. Rule 6G of the Income Tax Rules does not mention the period for which Tax audit report in Form 3CA / 3CB relates and in the formats of the reports we have to fill the period of Audit. So there is no need to issue separate format of the Tax audit report every year.

If your tax audit report is ready then there is no need to wait for the introduction of ITR, upload it and get it approved by the assessee because if there is any change (like last year’s midyear change) in the format of TAR by the CBDT then you will be saved to collect fresh information for already completed audit because in that case your responsibility to file TAR is complete and you need not to issue a fresh report.

Further the Income Tax site is also accepting the TAR for assessment year 2015-16 without any problem.

So if Tax audit is complete then upload the audit report and get is approved by the assessee without waiting for introduction of ITRs. It will give you a better time management.