A committee of experts headed by Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) member Akhilesh Ranjan on Monday submitted its report on replacing the Income Tax Act with a new Direct Tax Code.
In November last year, the Finance Ministry had appointed Ranjan, Member (Legislation) at CBDT, as convenor of the task force which included Girish Ahuja (a chartered accountant), Rajiv Memani (Chairman and Regional Managing Partner of EY), Mukesh Patel (practicing tax advocate), Mansi Kedia (Consultant at ICRIER) and G C Srivastava (retired Indian Revenue Service and advocate).
The task force was scheduled to submit its report by May 31 but the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gave it a two-month extension. Later the government allowed the task force to submit its report by August 16 as the new members requested for more time to provide further inputs.
The task force was assigned to draft direct tax laws incorporating international best practices and keeping in mind the economic needs of the country.