According to Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister, the Income Tax Department has issued about a lakh notices to people for failing to file returns or underreporting income in previous years. This year, we heard a lot of people ask, “What’s going on? Notices have come to us. Why are there so many notices being sent out? Simply put, that is more than what you have filed based on these two categories, where information is available. In her address to the 164th Income Tax Day on Monday, Sitharaman said, “There are reasons to believe that the income has been understated or, if there were non-filers, information is that they should have been filers.
“About one lakh notices were sent,” Sitharaman said, adding that the notices are expected to be cleared by the end of this fiscal 2023-24.
Under income tax law, officers can reopen past assessments of up to six years.
The Minister said the notices were not just thoughtlessly sent and noted she was assured by the Chairman CBDT, Nitin Gupta, that by March 2024, the entire one lakh notices will be cleared.
The Minister said that no tax assessee is going to face reopening of cases after 6 years, which was earlier 10 years, thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “This change was brought to benefit tax assessee,” she said.
Sitharaman praised the Income Tax department during her speech for increasing revenue without raising taxes on the general public. “Over the past three to four years, the tax rate has not increased, but revenue has increased and expectations have been met. Although tax rates have not increased, the government has seen an increase in revenue, efficiency, and the formalization of the economy, she continued.