'Advance ruling facility to resident tax payers'

The income tax department will extend the advance ruling facility to resident tax payers from the current year, KV Chowdary, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), said here on Friday.

Till now this facility was available only to non-resident tax payers.

The scheme of advance rulings was introduced by the Finance Act, 1993. Under the scheme, the power of giving advance rulings has been entrusted to an independent adjudicatory body. Accordingly, a high-level body headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court has been set up. This institution is empowered to issue rulings, which are binding both on the income-tax department and the applicant.

With the advance ruling facility, the applicant can have an idea of the possible tax liability before entering into a particular transaction, according to Chowdary.

Responding to a question on important areas where tax evasion was high, the newly-appointed CBDT chairman said tax evasion had been high in the real estate sector in boom and also in a downturn.

Last year, the I-T investigations wing had detected Rs 90,000 crore in undisclosed income from 5,327 surveys conducted by the department. The surveys was directed mainly at the power sector, mobile phone trading, real estate, steel and chemical sectors, according to Chowdary