Doctors, lawyers and other professionals —both salaried and self-employed— may now have to pay a higher professional tax. Acceding a long-pending demand of the state governments, the Centre has decided to raise the ceiling on professional tax from Rs 2,500 to Rs 7,500 per annum. The Union Cabinet is expected to take up the proposal on Thursday.
In the first instance, 15 bought-leaf tea factories in Nilgiris have applied for energy audit under the energy conservation project launched by Tea Board in co-operation with United Nations Development Programme’s Global Environment Facility and implemented by Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE).
TAN is a unique identification number, which is allotted to people who are deducting or collecting tax at source on behalf of the income tax department. It has to be quoted in all TDS/ TCS returns. As in the case of permanent account numbers (PAN) that helps to keep track of all assessees and their returns, TAN is used to keep a tab on all tax dedicators and deductions. If all these officers have a TAN, It would be easier to track collections by state governments through TDS.
The Ahmedabad Income-Tax Tribunal has held that where charges are incurred towards MICR facilities regarding identifying, reading and clearing cheques through special kind of machines, the same would be in the nature of fees for technical services (FTS) and would accordingly be liable to deduct tax at source (TDS) under section 194J. In the relevant case, the assessee was engaged in the business of banking activities/services. During verification of the TDS return, the AO observed that the assessee had made payment towards MICR charges to MICR centre managed by State Bank of India without deducting TDS.
If you are thinking of filing your income tax returns online, think twice. It is very easy for anyone to hack into your account and have access to your income tax details. All a hacker needs to know is – 1. Your name 2. Permanent account number (PAN) and 3. Your date of birth. He first needs to log onto the e-filing website (www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in).
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has notified amendments to the Industrial Park Scheme 2008 under sub-section (4) of section 80IA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on 2nd July 2008. According to the amended scheme, the ambit of “industrial activity” has been expanded to include (i) research and experimental development on natural sciences and engineering as defined in section K, division 73, group 731 of the National Industrial Classification, 2004 Code, issued by the Central Statistical Organisation, Department of Statistics; (ii) development of computer software; and (iii) information technology enabled services as notified vide notification number S.O.. 890(E), dated the 26th September 2000 for the purposes of sections 10A, 10B and 80HHE of the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has decided to relax norms on scrutiny of tax payers whose premises have been surveyed by the officials, a step aimed at encouraging evaders to pay up. The decision is likely to provide relief to thousands of taxpayers and it would save them from harassment at the hands of taxmen apart from litigation costs, said a senior Finance Ministry official. The decision has been taken following Finance Minister P Chidambaram’ s assertion that government wanted to send a message that those who comply with the tax laws would not be harassed by the tax officials.
Sick industrial units may no longer have to wait for decades for the authorities to decide whether they should be revived or liquidated. To fast-track the determination of industrial sickness of enterprises, the government is planning to expand the scope of the Company Law Board (CLB) to assess whether a sick unit should be liquidated or revived. At present, this procedure is carried out by the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), which would be wound up. The corporate affairs ministry is working on a proposal to vest CLB with this authority.
NEW SCRUTINY NORMS FOR FINANCIAL YEAR 2007-08 – In super cession of earlier instructions on the above subject the Board hereby lays down the following procedure for selection of returns / cases of Non-Corporate Assessees for scrutiny during the current financial year i.e. 2007-08.
Appointment of branch statutory auditors of Public Sector Banks – Chartered Accountants from North Eastern Region. RBI has decided to relax the eligibility norm in respect of professional standing of individual auditors/proprietar y audit firms from the North-Eastern Region (viz. the states of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura) by reducing the period from 3 years to 1 year from the year 2008-09 and onwards.
