In her interim Budget 2024 speech today, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the Centre will not pursue taxpayers to recover past and disputed direct taxes up to ₹ 25,000 until the financial year 2009–10.
She added that there will be a withdrawal of direct tax demands up to ₹ 10,000 from the fiscal years 2010–11 to 2014–15.
In her 58 minute long speech Sitharaman said that, there are a large number of petty, non-verified, non-reconciled or disputed direct tax demands, many of them dating as far back as 1962, which continue to remain on the books, causing anxiety to honest taxpayers and hindering refunds of subsequent years. I propose to withdraw such outstanding direct tax demands up to ₹ 25,000 pertaining to the period up to financial year 2009-10, and up to ₹ 10,000 for financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15. This is expected to benefit about a crore taxpayers
FM Sitharaman has also claimed that this decision will benefit about one core payers in the country.
Following tradition, the FM left tax slabs unchanged in the interim budget.
"As for tax proposals, in keeping with the convention, I do not propose to make any changes relating to taxation and propose to retain the same tax rates for direct taxes and indirect taxes including import duties," she said.
Nevertheless, as of March 31, 2024, some tax breaks for investments and start-ups made by sovereign wealth or pension funds, as well as a tax exemption on a portion of specific IFSC units' income, will no longer be available. I propose extending the deadline to March 31, 2025, in order to maintain tax continuity," Ms. Sitharaman stated.
For the Assessment Year 2023–2024, there was a notable increase in the number of Income-tax Returns (ITRs) filed, with 8.18 crore ITRs filed through December 31, 2023, compared to 7.51 crore ITRs filed through December 31, 2022. Comparing this to the total ITRs filed for AY 2022–2023 shows a 9% rise.
