CENTRAL BOARD OF DIRECT TAXES ISSUES
DETAILED GUIDELINES FOR LAYING DOWN STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE FOR VERIFICATION/CORRECTION
OF ARREAR TAX DEMAND
Detailed instructions have been issued by the Central Board of Direct
Taxes (CBDT) to all the assessing officers laying down a Standard Operating
Procedure (SOP) for verification and correction of demand by the AOs.
As per this SOP, the taxpayers can get their outstanding tax demand
reduced/deleted by applying for rectification along with the requisite
documentary evidence of tax/demand already paid. The SOP also makes special
provisions for dealing with the tax demand upto Rs. 1,00,000/- in the case of
Individuals and HUFs in order to accommodate certain extra ordinary situations.
The SOP is expected to mitigate the long standing grievances of
taxpayers by way of reduction/deletion of tax demands. The CBDT has further
noted that many taxpayers are committing mistakes while furnishing their tax
credit claims in the return of income.
Such mistakes include quoting of invalid/incorrect TAN; quoting of only
one TAN against more than one TAN tax credit; furnishing information in wrong
TDS Schedules in the Return Form; furnishing wrong challan particulars in
respect of Advance tax, Self-assessment tax payments etc. As a result of these
mistakes, the tax credit cannot be allowed to the taxpayers while processing
returns despite the tax credit being there in 26 AS statement.
The CBDT, therefore, desires the taxpayers to verify if the demand in
their case is due to tax credit mismatch on account of such incorrect
particulars and submit rectification requests with correct particulars of
TDS/tax claims for correction of these demands.
The rectification requests have to be submitted to the jurisdictional
assessing officer in case the return was processed by such officer, or the
taxpayer is informed by CPC, Bangalore that such rectification is to be carried
out by Jurisdictional assessing officer. In all other cases of processing by
CPC, Bangalore, an online rectification request can be made by logging in to
e-filing website http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in as per the procedure given
in detail in its Help Menu.