To honour the honest taxpayers of India Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday launched the programme ‘Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest’ through a video conference. This new programme got many major tax reforms in the direct taxes that include the corporate tax rates cut and the abolition of the Dividend Distribution Tax. PM Modi said this platform will “reform and simplify our tax system”.
During the launch of the tax platform, the Prime Minister said, “This platform consists of major reforms such as faceless assessment, faceless appeal and taxpayers’ charters. The faceless assessment and the taxpayers’ charter have been implemented from today.”
He also added, “The facility for faceless appeal will be available to the people of the country from 25 September, which is the birth anniversary of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Ji. Today as the tax system is becoming faceless, it is giving confidence to the taxpayer of fairness and fearlessness.”
Key Points from the Prime Minister’s addressing-
- He announced that the Faceless Assessment and TaxPayers’ Charter would get implemented from the date of announcement and the facility of Faceless Appeals will come into force from 25th September.
- This new Transparent Taxation platform aims to make the system seamless, faceless, painless and to ease out tax compliance.
- In the Faceless Assessment Scheme, the selection of a taxpayer will only be done through a system using data analytics and AI.
- The taxpayers charter is a historical document laying out various rights of the taxpayers.
- In the Faceless Appeals system, the appeals will be randomly allotted to any office across the country, and the identity of the officer deciding the appeal will remain unknown. Further, decisions will be team-based.
- The Income Tax (IT) department will now have to trust the taxpayers, who will also have the right to appeal in case of any suspicion from the IT department.
- He also announced that the Income-tax return (ITR) scrutiny has been cut to one-fourth to 0.26 per cent of all returns filed.
- The taxpayer is now assured of fair, courteous and rational behaviour. That is, the income tax department now has to take care of the taxpayer’s dignity sensitively.
- Also, there are some exceptions in the Faceless Assessment Scheme that includes, serious frauds, major tax evasion, sensitive and search matters. The system also excludes international taxation and Black Money Act & Benami Property.
Prime Minister made a request, “Those who are able to pay tax but are not paying taxes, should come forward with self-motivation. This is my request.”
With Warm Regards,
CL Bureau.
