Tax Updates

  No GST on transport cost partially borne by staff In its recent order, the GST-Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR), Maharashtra bench, has held that partial recovery of transport costs from its employees by a private company is not a “supply” and hence not subject to the goods and services tax (GST). This ruling will gladden companies that increasingly provide transport facilities to their employees. Companies across sectors are gradually asking employees to return to their workplace, either full-time or based on a hybrid model. This ruling, which has a persuasive effect, will come in useful in similar situations. Integrated Decisions and Systems India, a private sector company, is engaged in software development and allied services which it provides to its overseas parent company. Between July 2017 and March 2019, it spent Rs 1.6 crore on hiring cars and cabs for transporting its employees. It paid GST on this entire sum. Several companies ask employees to bear a certain portion...

New functionality on Annual Aggregate Turnover (AATO) deployed on GST Portal for taxpayers. 27.07.2021 GSTN has implemented a new functionality on taxpayers’ dashboards with the following features: The taxpayers can now see the exact Annual Aggregate Turnover (AATO) for the previous FY, instead of just the two slabs of Above or Upto Rs. 5 Cr. The taxpayers can also see the Aggregate Turnover of the current FY based on the returns filed till date. The taxpayers have also now been provided with the facility of turnover update in case taxpayers feel that the system calculated turnover displayed on their dashboard varies from the turnover as per their records. This facility of turnover update shall be provided to all the GSTINs registered on a common PAN. All the changes by any of the GSTINs in their turnover shall be summed up for computation of Annual Aggregate Turnover for each of the GSTINs The taxpayer can amend the turnover twice within a period of one month from the date of roll out...

For individuals [not subject to tax audit provisions under Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘the Act’)], the income tax return (ITR) filing deadline for Financial Year (FY) 2020-21 (Assessment Year 2021-22) has been extended from 31 July, 2021 to 30 September, 2021 owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. ITR forms (Forms 1, 2 and 4) for FY 2020-21 have already been notified by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). In this article, a few important aspects which one must consider before filing ITR have been enumerated: 1. Choose correct ITR form It is important to select the applicable ITR form depending upon the taxpayer’s residential status and income earned from various sources for an accurate filing. For example, form ITR-1 can only be used by a resident individual having total income up to Rs 50 lakh from salary, one house property and income from other sources. It cannot be used by a taxpayer who is a non-resident or a not ordinary resident or have capital gains for which form ITR-2 has t...

Finance Ministry is expecting that tech issues of the new Income Tax (I-T) portal will be resolved soon and the website will function normally by the first week of August, sources informed CNBC-TV18. “Infosys and Finance Ministry are taking a daily update on improvements,”  sources said. Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the new income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds. Income Tax Department had launched its new e-filing portal– http://www.incometax.gov.in — on June 7, 2021. Since then, technical glitches continue to mar the functioning of the new income tax portal as certain key utilities like e-proceedings and digital signature certificates are not yet functional. Infosys is still working on resolving all the issues that taxpayers are facing on the new Income Tax portal, a project that was contracted to the IT bellwether and for which the government has sanctioned Rs 4241 crore.  The comp...

The Government has decided to provide income tax exemption to the amount received by a taxpayer for medical treatment from an employer or from any person for treatment of COVID-19 during the financial year 2019-20 and subsequent years.   This was stated by Minister of State for Finance Shri Pankaj Chaudhary in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2021. The Minister stated that  Income-tax exemption shall be provided to the amount received by a taxpayer for medical treatment from an employer or from any person for treatment of COVID-19 during financial year 2019-20 and subsequent years. The Minister further stated that  the aim of this exemption is to provide relief to taxpayers who suffered on account of COVID-19 and had to incur sum for medical treatment of COVID-19 after taking help from employer or any person . It is the stated policy of the Government to discourage cash transactions and move towards less cash economy. Hence,  there is no pro...