Under pressure from the middle class, the government is likely to revert to the two-page Saral form for filing of income-tax returns. A notification to allow the salaried class to file their returns in the existing format is expected soon.
The last date for filing of returns by the salaried people is June 30. After an extensive debate at the two-day meeting of the chief commissioners and director-generals of income-tax, it was decided to leave the decision with the revenue secretary.
The government introduced the revised 10-page form last year to replace the Saral form, which Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha had introduced in 1998.
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The new form has been criticised because it involved filling up of a number of additional details.
It is too voluminous and difficult to wade through, without professional help, assessees feel.
At the meeting, tax officials argued when the government was trying to double the number of taxpayers to 50 million by 2003-04, the revised form would prove a severe disincentive in filing returns for the new taxpayers.
The meeting also endorsed the proposal to settle a large number of minor revenue cases in favour of assessees to allow the department to go after the bigger fish.
There is a huge backlog of cases with the income-tax department at various levels, amounting to Rs 29,662 crore in arrears.
The government is concerned that the backlog, which has been mounting, will be difficult to prune unless the minor cases are weeded out.
If accepted, it can set a precedent for the department of Customs and central excise, which is also wrestling with a backlog of over Rs 3,000 crore tax arrears locked up in various court cases.
But this may prove difficult as there are four layers of appellate authorities up to the Supreme Court where direct tax cases can be fought.
According to the department, while officials are asked to accept the verdict of the appellate tribunals, most of the cases continue beyond the tribunals to the settlement commissions and beyond on the premise that the cases involve a point of law and hence cannot be abandoned by the department.
Besides, in the absence of finality of the disputed point, the assessing officer is required to raise further tax demand on the same issue in successive assessment years.