Adhia not to hold weekly video conferences with taxmen

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia will not be holding weekly video conferences with income tax officials on the ongoing black money disclosure scheme, a Finance Ministry official said today.
Adhia used to hold weekly video conferences with tax officials across the country to ensure smooth functioning of the Income Disclosure Scheme (IDS) 2016 under which a four-month disclosure window ending September 30 has been opened to give opportunity to domestic black money holders to come clean by paying tax and penalty.
"It is not necessary now to hold such video conferences... (they) will be held by the secretary as and when required," the official said.

Moreover, he added, the queries with regard to IDS too come down and hence regular conferences were not needed.
Adhia held the video conference with principal commissioners of income tax on last Saturday.
Last week, a delegation of revenue department officials had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to ensure that Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) gets its "due importance and respect".

Meanwhile, the IRS Association has advised its Mumbai unit to suspend the agitation against revenue department over alleged interference by the department in "operational matters".
Some of the senior-most IRS officers in Mumbai last month discussed revenue department's alleged interference in "operational matters" and said it was hurting the morale of income tax department officials.

In the resolution passed by them, they charged the revenue department of undermining the autonomy of the CBDT.
The Bill also proposes to raise penalty under I-T Act for
search and seizure cases by 3-fold to 30 per cent, a move aimed at deterring black money holders, from 10 or 20 per cent currently.
Once the amendments are approved by Parliament, there would be a penalty of 30 per cent of unaccounted income, if admitted and taxes are paid. This would take the total incidence of tax and penalty to 60 per cent.
While proposing to amend Section 271AAB, the government has decided to retain the provision of levying penalty of 60 per cent of income in "any other cases". That would raise the incidence of tax and penalty to 90 per cent.

During 2015-16, the I-T Department conducted 445 searches which discovered undisclosed income of Rs 11,066 crore. Total assets seized were Rs 712.68 crore.
Also 545 searches conducted in 2014-15 have led to admission of undisclosed income worth Rs 10,288 crore. Total assets seized amounted to Rs 761.70 crore.
Besides, 569 searches in 2013-14 saw admission of undisclosed income of Rs 10,791.63 crore and asset seizure of Rs 807.84 crore.
This took the total undisclosed income which was admitted during searches to Rs 32,146 crore.
Search and seizure operations are conducted by the tax department when the Assessing Officer believes that the assessee is unlikely to produce books of accounts or likely to suppress books of account and other documents which may be useful and relevant to an income tax proceedings.