F. No. 450/25/2009-Cus.lV While reviewing various measures put in place for trade facilitation in recent months including the ;Customs Clearance Facilitation Committee, the Board has felt that Commissioners and Chief Commissioners need to increase their involvement by closely monitoring pending Bills of Entry.
In the case of National Petroleum Construction Company Vs. DIT in ITA Nos. 143, 144, 533/2013 and 795/2014, Hon’ble Delhi High Court in its order dt. 13.08.2015, dt. 20.08.2015 and 28.09.2015 has directed the Income Tax Department to formulate and implement a standard operating procedure on the following three issues:
Instruction No. 17/2015 Board has consistently been advising the field authorities to be fair, objective and rational while framing scrutiny assessment orders. Role of supervisory authorities in this regard, has also been highlighted by the Board from time to time. It has, however, been brought to the notice of Board that the tendency to frame high-pitched and unreasonable assessment orders is still persisting due to which grievances are being raised by the taxpayers. Such grievances not only reflect harassment of taxpayers but also lead to generation of unproductive work for Department.
The undersigned is directed to refer to the CBEC’s Supplementary Instructions on Central Excise which stipulates procedures to be followed on various procedural aspects w.r.t. registration, invoice systems, rebate procedure under exports, bonds/ LUTs etc. It may be noted that considerable time has elapsed since these instructions were last issued and several instructions have lost relevance due to changes in law/ procedures over the past few years.
Instruction No. 16/2015 Sub-section (2) of Section 12AA of the Income-tax Act 1961 prescribes that every order granting or refusing registration under clause (b) of sub-section (I) of that Section shall be passed before the expiry of six months from the end of the month in which the application was received under clause (a) or clause (aa) of the sub-section (1) thereof. Thus while processing the application u/s 12AA of the Act, the time limit of six months has to be adhered to by the Commissioner of Income Tax (Exemptions). However, it has been brought to the notice of the Board that the said time limit has not been observed in some cases.
F.No. 225/26112015/ITA.II As per provisions of sub-section (6) of section 245R of the Income-tax Act, 1961 [‘Act’], the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) [hereinafter referred to as ‘Authority] is required to pronounce its advance ruling, on an application made by an applicant desirous of obtaining such ruling,within six months from the date of its receipt.
Chief Commissioners should assign the cases of adjudication on a monthly basis in his jurisdiction to the officers in personam and ensure that the officer to whom the case has been assigned disposes of the said case. In the event of his transfer out of that jurisdiction he should not be relieved till he has disposed of the said cases.
In order to provide quick resolution of taxpayer’s grievance, wherever action is required to be taken by the officers in field formation, the Aayakar Sampark Kendra should forward the email to concerned CIT (Admn.& CO) for onward transmission to respective Jurisdictional Pr. CCIT/CCIT/Pr. CIT/CIT/Assessing Officer for necessary action. The taxpayer may also be informed so that he may do further correspondence with the concerned officer.
Instruction No. 15/2015 The provisions relating to transfer pricing are contained in Sections 92 to 92F of the Income-tax Act (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’). These provisions came into force w.e.f. Assessment Year 2002-2003 and have seen a number of amendments over the years, including the insertion of Safe Harbour and Advance Pricing Agreement provisions and the extension of the applicability of transfer pricing provisions to Specified Domestic Transactions.
Instruction No. 14/2015 while scrutinizing the cases of entities engaged in the business of mining, the Annual Returns filed with IBM by the respective assessees should invariably be obtained and compared with the details submitted to the Income-tax Department so as to ascertain whether any suppression of production and discrepancy in stock exists and further necessary action as per provisions of law may be taken.
