Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Rajya Sabha MP ND Gupta on Sunday wrote a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and sought an extension in the tax audit filing date for the current financial year.
In the letter, the MP from Delhi said, "In view of unprecedented surge in COVID-19 situation, I personally request you to kindly extend the date of filing Tax Audit report u/s 44AB of Income Tax Act 1961 to another date based on advise from NITI AAYOG/Health Ministry. Extension in time limit will not lead to any loss of revenue to the government and taxpayers will make perfect compliances as far as audit report and return is concerned."
He added, "India is facing acute third wave of COVID-19 and has witnessed substantial growth of COVID-19 cases from active cases of 77002 with positivity rate of 0.79 per cent on December 29, 2021, to current active cases of 590611 with positivity rate of 10.21 per cent on January 9."
He further said that changes in the tax filing form are creating hindrance for SMEs.
He wrote, "The common concern escalated to me by SMEs is that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) carried out changes in the application for filing the audited information ie form 3CD-Schema ("Tax Audit Schema") in which Tax Audit Report is required to be filed electronically. The Tax Audit Schema was changed thrice in last two months ie on 3rd November 2021, 2nd December 2021 and latest on 6th January 2022."
"Due to these sudden last-minute changes, information furnished in old tax audit schema is required to rechecked and reverified in latest Tax Audit Schema. This cautious approach of SMEs is needed as any error in the information submitted in Tax Audit Report would subject those SMEs to penal provisions under Income Tax Act, 1961," added the MP.
(With inputs from ANI)
