New Delhi: Income tax officials may now consider references from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) or from very important persons (VIPs) when choosing to dispose of appeals on a priority or out-of-turn basis.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes said this while issuing fresh and superseding guidelines on when senior officials can choose to expedite the disposal of income tax appeals.
According to the new guidelines, there are five situations where appeals at a certain organisation level may be expeditiously disposed of.
They are when a case involves a demand higher than Rs 1 crore, when VIPs or the PMO refers a case, when directions are received from a court, when senior citizens make requests or when a case involves genuine hardship.
Previous guidelines issued in December 2021 also mentioned five situations but VIP or PMO references were not one of them. Instead, they contained a provision for expeditious disposal where refunds were higher than Rs 1 lakh.
The new guidelines, issued on Thursday (March 7), deal with appeals pending at the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal/Appeal Unit) and Additional or Joint Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal) organisational levels.
They say that requests for expeditious disposal that are either raised at the appellant’s instance, or are referred by an assessing officer or a range head, “may be considered” by Principal Commissioners, Chief Commissioners or Directors General of Income Tax on the basis of recommendations made by jurisdictional principal income tax commissioners among other ranks.
As far as appeals within the jurisdiction of faceless income tax appeals commissioners are concerned, the new guidelines say that requests for expeditious disposals shall be referred to a Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (National Faceless Appeal Centre).
The ‘faceless’ income tax assessment and appeals system was created in 2020 so that taxpayers would not have to physically visit income tax offices or meet officials in person.
This was intended to increase convenience for taxpayers and rein in corruption.
