An Income-Tax Department internal committee reviewing the old direct tax law to pave the way for a new one has “largely” received suggestions for simplifying the language, better “structuring” the provisions and enlarging the ambit of schemes like presumptive taxation, CBDT Chairman Ravi Agrawal said Sunday. Speaking to PTI during a post-Budget interview at his North Block office, Agrawal said the panel also “studied” the deliberations and processes of countries like the UK, Australia and some others where a similar tax law simplification exercise was undertaken.
During her last year’s Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a comprehensive review of the Income-Tax Act, 1961.
The aim of this review was to make the bulky Act — with 298 sections and 23 chapters at present — concise, clear and easy to understand, leading to reduction in tax disputes, litigation and providing greater tax certainty to taxpayers.
An internal committee of the I-T Department was subsequently created which invited suggestions from the public in four categories — simplification of language, litigation reduction, compliance reduction and redundant or obsolete provisions.
The committee had received 6,500 such suggestions.
Source #ET
