Taxdtidt Blog

Much debate has been going on about whether Aadhaar must be provided in income tax return. Recently, the Supreme Court of India has said that if you have an Aadhaar Card you must mention it while filing your income tax return. Here is a brief summary of the honorable Supreme Court’s decision : Starting 1st July, anyone who has an Aadhaar Card must mention it in their tax return. Those who do not have an Aadhaar Card and do not wish to get one, for such persons, PAN will not be cancelled. Do note that returns can still be filed until 30th June 2017 without mentioning Aadhaar number. Some individuals are exempt from quoting Aadhaar, read about them  here . This decision has come in the wake of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court challenging the linkage of Aadhaar with income tax return. This is based on the premise that such linkage is a threat and invasion of ‘privacy’ of an individual and details of his/her personal income should not be mandatorily linked with Aadhaa

The government today announced the interest rates for small savings schemes for the July-September 2017 quarter. Interest rate on  Public Provident Fund  (PPF) has been cut by 10 basis points to 7.8% Interest rate on Kisan Vikas Patra has been cut by 10 basis points to 7.5% Interest rate on National Savings Certificate has been cut by 10 basis to 7.8% The interest rates on these schemes were cut even for the April-June quarter. A further reduction in interest rate will be another disappointment for small savers. The Public Provident Fund and National Savings Certificate are guaranteed-income schemes that also earn a tax-saving deduction under  Section 80C  of the Income Tax Act. Both of these investments are availed by risk-averse investors who wish to get a fixed return from their investments. Reducing the interest rate on these schemes would hurt these small savers as they are long-term investments that investors depend upon.

In its bid to allay concerns of traders on invoice generation post-GST, the CBEC, under the Department of Revenue, said: “There are some apprehensions in the trade circles that GST invoice have to be issued as per prescribed format and that issuing GST invoice is going to be burdensome process. This is not correct. Some important facts about GST provisions relating to invoice are highlighted for information of all stakeholders.” Touted as the biggest reform since Independence, the incoming indirect tax regime is aimed at creation of a common market, preventing ‘tax-on-tax’ and making goods and services cheaper. The Central Board of Excise and Customs gave a list of facts on GST invoice: 1) All GST taxpayers are free to design their own invoice format. 2) GST Law only required that certain fields must mandatorily be in the invoice. 3) The time period prescribed for issuing invoice is different for goods & services – for goods, it is any time before its delivery and for se

Prime Minister Narendra Modi billed  GST  as a ‘good and simple tax’ that will end harassment of small businesses. However, the reality remains quite different. Hailed by experts and economists that  GST  will be beneficial in the long run, small businessmen are still unclear about the nuts and bolts of the new tax regime. Requesting anonymity, a central excise, and customs official says that the main problem is that there is no concept of issuing a tax invoice in tier II cities which has now been mandated if the sale value is above Rs 200. “This is bound to create an initial hiccup for small businesses.” He further adds that without strong IT infrastructure in these cities, these businessmen are now hapless, looking for IT skills. However, these businesses will become more transparent in the long run, he said. Archit Gupta, founder of  Cleartax , says that they see over 50% traffic from metro cities while tier II and III cities constitute around 46% who seek help for e-fil