Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The amendments made in the Income Tax Act in the Union Budget 2023 have empowered the income tax department to trace income tax dodgers by scrutinising their income tax returns (ITR).
Chartered accountant Deepak Maheshwari, a senior income tax practitioner, said this while addressing a seminar organised jointly by Tax Practitioners Association (TPA) and CA Indore Branch at TPA hall on Friday. The keynote speaker of the seminar, Maheshwari, said efforts have aligned the changes made by the union finance minister in the Income Tax Act with the income tax return.
Now, the income tax department is trying to trace important financial transactions of the taxpayer through the returns. In this age of information technology, the income tax department is getting information about almost every major transaction of the taxpayer in real-time and in such a situation, if the income tax return is not filed carefully, there is a full possibility that the taxpayer will get a query or notice from the department.
Maheshwari said that for this many new attachments, appendices and information have been added to the income tax return form.
Match figures of ITR with AIS
Maheshwari said that every taxpayer must match all the figures with the annual information statement (AIS) while filing the return. The AIS is available on the income tax portal of the taxpayer and it contains detailed information related to the financial transactions of the taxpayer which is available with the income tax department and is displayed there. If there is a mismatch between the information filed in the AIS and the return, then the department can ask for clarification, and the income tax department can take action like re-assessment.
Claiming bogus exemption
He said that many people trade in the stock market. In the income tax return of the previous year, there was no separate arrangement for disclosure regarding intraday trading, but given the increasing transactions of the stock market, this year the income tax department has come up with a separate form for displaying information about intraday trading in the income tax return form. Necessary amendments have been made in the form of ITR.
Under another important change, now to get the exemption on donations, apart from giving the information of the institution, the person will also have to fill in a donation reference number, so that the income tax department can check the genuineness of that donation and other statutory requirements before giving exemption under section 80G for the donation. The department will be able to verify facts effectively and claiming of bogus exemption given for donation would be curbed.
