CA Online

A day after it “strongly advised” the finance ministry to ensure that all enforcement agencies under it were “absolutely neutral, impartial and non-discriminatory” while cracking down on illicit money use in elections, the Election Commission (EC) has called a meeting with the chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the revenue secretary, ET has learnt. Meanwhile, the chief accountant of the Congress party was summoned for questioning by the income tax department on Monday, sources said.  “We expect that senior leaders could be called in for further questioning on Tuesday,” a senior Congress functionary said. Government sources indicated Congress treasurer Ahmed Patel could be called in for questioning on Tuesday. Patel handles all financial matters and the I-T department’s findings on alleged hawala transactions would need to be explained by him. The EC meeting with the CBDT chief and the revenue secretary is expected to be held at Nirvachan Sadan on Tuesday morni

The move by the government to bring warehouses under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) net is likely to have a major impact on players in the organised  sector who take warehouses on rent as part of their collateral management business. They see a huge burden especially when they deal in farm commodities. Agri commodities collateral management business has flourished the past few years as companies in this space help farmers and processors get finance from  banks and non-banking institutions. The new government decision means that they have to pay now 18 per cent GST on the rent they pay for the warehouses in  which their collateral commodities are stored. In many cases, such companies themselves finance farmers or their group NBFCs finance them against collateral  commodities. Hence these collateral management companies cannot get input credit of the GST they pay on rent because the commodities in which they deal are  agri commodities, which do not attract GST. This is a big burden

The disclosure requirement in the income tax return (ITR) forms have been rising in recent years as the income-tax (I-T) department has been using  technology extensively to track tax evasion and process returns. But this year, the number of changes made to the ITR forms notified for the assessment year  (AY) 2019-20 is probably the highest in the recent time.  The changes have been made regarding disclosure of information and computation of income, inter-alia, change in method to disclose salary income, property- wise disclosure of arrears/unrealised rent, and many more for business owners. “Several changes have been made in the forms seeking additional details,  which will help in automatically validating or cross-checking the income and other details that the tax authorities may have from other sources,” says  Kuldip Kumar, partner and leader - Personal Tax, PwC India. He says that the changes will not only improve the processing of tax returns in an automated  environment but als