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CBDT forms committee to screen controversial, imp tax cases

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Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Jan 25 2013 | 4:04 AM IST

By setting up Central Technical Committee (CTC), the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) aims to bring clarity on contentious legal issues and reduce litigation by adopting a consistent approach on them.

"It has been observed that a large part of litigation in the direct taxes matters involves interpretation of legal provisions. Lack of desired clarity on contentious legal issues amongst the officers of the department sometimes leads to inconsistent approach on the same issue giving rise to further litigation.

"With a view to provide clarity on contentious legal issues, promote consistency of approach on a given issue and reduce litigation, it has been decided to set up an institutional mechanism to formulate departmental view," a note for the creation of the committee said.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has decided to create a Central Technical Committee (CTC) headed by a Joint Secretary level official, who will be assisted by other senior I-T officials in the Finance Ministry as its members.

A Regional Technical Committee (RTC), comprising the local tax officials, will act as the sub-office of the CTC.

Sources in the Finance Ministry said the CTC will take up cases which have a large revenue implication or have strategic legal ramifications, and it will collect and analyse divergent views from all the units of the department like investigation, assessment and pricing before a legal reply is filed in the High Courts or the Supreme Court.

"Cases like Vodafone are surely one of the many reasons that such a committee has been formed. However, that is not the only case. The I-T department has a lot of cases which have complicated and multi-layered legal interpretations," a senior official said. MORE

  

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First Published: Aug 28 2012 | 5:55 PM IST

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