The income tax department has discovered several cases where taxpayers have taken credit for payment of "self-assessment tax" without actually making the payment. Such tax arrears are pegged at around Rs 5,000 crore. The non-payment of dues has resulted in the department not being able to process income tax returns (ITRs) for the last financial year. Tax authorities are now approaching the assessees to pay up the tax dues immediately. Sources in the department said that several of these taxpayers had assured to pay the arrears but have not yet deposited the tax money. 

I-T Department's Delhi division has begun scrutiny of real estate transactions where cash payments exceeding Rs 20,000 have been made. I-T Department had visited the office of Sub-registrar to scan all the registries for property purchases made from June 1, 2015, to December 2018 where cash payment above Rs 20,000 was made, a senior I-T Department official said. Section 269SS of the Income Tax Act was amended to prohibit cash payments above Rs 20,000 for purchase of any property including agriculture land. A penalty of an equal amount is imposed on the seller for violation of the law u/s 271D.

Stringent norms related to e-way bill are affecting the Rs 22,000 crore express delivery operators in the country. The sector employs over 16 lakh people directly and indirectly. Vijay Kumar, COO, Express Industry Council of India (EICI) said the processes followed by express operators are complex than normal transporters. EICI has made representations to the government to address the sector’s concerns. EICI represents 30-40 organised express operators including Fedex, DTDC and Blue Dart. 

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear Vodafone's plea seeking income tax refund of Rs 4,800 crore. The top court has issued a notice to the taxman and has sought its reply within four weeks. Vodafone had challenged the Delhi High Court's December order which struck down the group's demand for I-T refund. Vodafone had filed a plea before the high court seeking directions to the I-T Department to expeditiously process its refund claim of over Rs 4,800 crore for the assessment years (AYs) 2014-15 to 2017-18.

The government on Wednesday said IT major Infosys will develop the next-generation income tax filing system for Rs 4,241.97 crore which will cut down the processing time for returns to one day from 63 days and expedite refunds. Union minister Piyush Goyal also informed that tax refunds worth Rs 1.83 lakh crore have been issued so far in the current fiscal. 

In a bid to meet revenue targets, tax officials have started issuing prosecution notices to directors of several multinational companies (MNCs). According to sources, prosecution notices have been sent to atleast 500 MNCs including Google, Facebook, Samsonite and KraftHeinz. Notices are being sent to companies for varied reasons such as that filing delayed tax returns, those that have not appealed against the department’s order before any appellate authorities but also didn’t pay the demand amount, companies that have challenged the penalty levied by the tax department, companies that failed to pay self-assessment tax, and those that haven’t deposited TDS. 

The GST e-way bill system is likely to be integrated with NHAI’s FASTag mechanism from April to help track movement of goods and check GST evasion.  “It has come to our notice that some transporters are doing multiple trips by generating a single e-way bill. Integration of e-way bill with FASTag would help find the location of the vehicle and when and how many times it has crossed NHAI’s toll plazas,” the official said. 

As per Income tax rules, when a person dies, his/her legal representative shall be liable to pay the tax dues and file the income tax return. The legal heir would need to register himself as a representative on the income-tax portal along with valid documents. Once the request is approved by the department, the person can file the return as legal heir of the deceased. To surrender PAN, an application to the assessing officer (AO) has to be submitted with details such as reasons for surrender (i.e. death of the holder), name, PAN and copy of death certificate.

60% of the registered taxpayers may fall out of the tax net with negligible impact on tax collection after the GST Council in its 32nd meeting decided to hike the exemption limit to Rs 40 lakh and Rs 20 lakh for hilly and small states. As at March 2018, there were over 87 lakh registered dealers with nearly 45 lakh reporting around Rs 20-lakh turnover. Another 10 lakh reported turnover of up to Rs 40 lakh, data accessed by TOI showed. Though the current base of taxpayers is close to 1.2 crore, officials said that the trend is largely similar. 

The GST Council, comprising Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his state counterparts, held its 32nd meeting on Thursday. Some key decisions were taken. From April 1, composition scheme limit will be increased from Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore. Taxpayers under this scheme will pay the tax quarterly but the return will be filed once a year. Composition rate for services pegged at 6% while the turnover threshold is set at Rs 50 lakh. GST exemption limit enhanced to Rs 40 lakh and Rs 20 lakh for small states.

In its 32nd meeting on Thursday, the GST Council is likely to consider several proposals aimed at providing relief to smaller taxpayers. Among them, the Council is likely to raise the annual exemption threshold for registration to Rs 75 lakh from Rs 20 lakh currently. The Council is also expected to introduce a composition scheme for small service providers with a turnover threshold upto Rs 1 crore. Such a scheme already exists for manufacturers and traders. The Council will also consider to slash the GST rate on under-construction housing units from the current 12 to 5% without input tax credit. 

The government informed the Parliament that undisclosed assets totalling over Rs 6,000 crore have been detected under The Black Money Act, 2015. Under the Act, the government had provided a one-time compliance opportunity for a limited period to those persons who have any foreign assets which were not been disclosed under the Income Tax Act. 648 declarations involving undisclosed foreign assets worth over Rs 4,100 crore were made under the compliance scheme which yielded tax over Rs 2,470 crore by way of tax and penalty amounts. 

GST, central excise and service tax evasion detected during the April -December 2018 period of the current financial year stood at Rs 48,555 crore, the highest in two years. An amount of Rs 9,959.29 crore of GST evasion has been recovered between April 2018 and December 2018.There are a total of 8,917 cases of evasion, of which investigation in 3,626 cases of GST evasion/violations was initiated till December in the current financial year by Central GST (CGST) formations.

Now businesses which have not filed GST returns for two consecutive tax periods will not be able to generate eway bill[1]. The move is aimed to improve GST compliance by registered business units who are not filing regular returns. Nearly 30% of eligible taxpayers continue to fail to file summary return GSTR-3B by the deadline, which is set on the 20th of every month.

A record 62.1 million Income tax returns (ITR) have been filed this fiscal till December 30, registering a growth of 43% over the same period last year. The government expects income tax returns to touch 70 million this year. The highest number of filings are of ITR-1 at 30 million. The department has also issued refunds worth Rs 1.31 lakh crore, up 17.02%, to 24 million taxpayers this fiscal so far, refuting concerns of delayed refunds to meet the government’s fiscal deficit target. Gross direct tax collections grew 14.11% to Rs 8.74 lakh crore up to December 31, 2018.