On Saturday, due to the pandemic of COVID-19, the Lok Sabha passed a taxation bill that seeks to provide various reliefs that include extending deadlines for filing returns, and for linking PAN and Aadhaar to taxpayers.
The Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation and Amendment of Certain Provisions) Bill, 2020, will replace the Taxation and other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated in March.
In also addition, the bill seeks to provide tax exemption for contributions made to PM-CARES Fund, which was set up in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman replying to the debate on the bill, said that “the ordinance was necessary to defer various compliance deadlines under the GST and Income Tax (I-T) Act during the COVID-19 times.”
The bill also seeks to make faceless assessments applicable to at least eight processes under the I-T Act, including for collection and recovery of tax and gathering of information.
FM Sitharaman also said that “To ensure there is transparency in tax administration, that is why we are putting it (faceless scheme) in law.”
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