In order to file his Income Tax Return (ITR), Amit (name changed) opened the e-filing site on June 9, 2021. While typing the URL, the browser auto filled the address of the old income tax site. Instead of redirecting to the new e-filing site, the homepage of the old site opened. However, on clicking the “Login Here” button, the message – “Please visit the new e-filing portal ‘incometax.gov.in’ appeared on the screen.

So, he opened the new e-filing site by carefully typing the URL. Curious about the newsite, he glanced through the home page to know the new features and view the guided tour of the new portal video.
wever, when he tried to log in, after taking much time, the login page failed to open. Amit was using the WiFi Hotspot of his mobile having a quota of 1.5GB per day, which he usually finds sufficient to meet his requirement for Work From Home (WFH) and using social media sites. To his dismay, however, Amit got a message that 50 per cent of his high-speed quota of 1.5GB data was used up within a few minutes of opening the new e-filing site.

Amit not only failed to login and file his ITR, but his quest to file ITR also hit his WFH hard.

Expressing his opinion, CA Karan Batra, Founder and CEO CharteredClub.com, said, “Such a heavy site being made live in the peak season with so many bugs and errors is not something which the taxpayers will appreciate.”

A day after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman flagged technical glitches on the income tax department’s new e-filing website, IT major Infosys said it expects the system to stabilise in the course of this week. On Tuesday, Sitharaman had asked Infosys and its Chairman Nandan Nilekani to fix technical glitches being encountered on the income tax department’s new e-filing website, after users flooded her Twitter timeline with complaints. “Our teams are making progress to address the technical issues. We expect the system to stabilize in the course of this week,” Infosys said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds. The portal went live on Monday evening.

While Sitharaman took to Twitter to announce the launch of the new portal on Tuesday morning, her timeline was soon flooded with user complaints.

“I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope @Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided,” she had tweeted later. TL here stands for timeline.

In a late evening reply to Sitharaman’s tweet, Nilekani said some technical issues were observed on day one, and Infosys is working to resolve them.

Technical issues marred the first day of the new income tax e-filing portal as several taxpayers were unable to log in or use it without glitches and took to Twitter to express their dismay.

Some users said that they were unable to log into both existing as well as the new portal, literally shutting them out of the system where they can access income tax returns, tax filing utilities that can be used offline besides other tools.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pulled up Infosys, the technology provider for the new portal, asking the company and its co-founder Nandan Nilekani to not let taxpayers down.
“The much awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night 20:45hrs. I see in my TL grievances and glitches. Hope @Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided,” Sitharaman said in a Twitter post.

“Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority,” she highlighted.

Till nearly 5 pm in the evening, the taxpayers continued experiencing issues. While some were getting logged out despite logging in, others who who were able to log in to the new IT portal after several attempts pointed to unavailability of 26AS downloads and poor navigation.

The Income Tax Department launched its new e-filing portal www.incometax.gov.in today (7th June, 2021). It will provide convenience and a “modern, seamless experience” to taxpayers. “Dear taxpayer, The Income Tax Department is happy to inform the launch of its new e-filing portal www.incometax.gov.in on 7th June 2021,” the Tax Department said in messages sent to taxpayers.

“We are as excited about the new portal as our users! We are at the final stages in the roll-out of the new portal and it will be available shortly. We appreciate your patience as we work towards making it operational soon,” the tax department tweeted at 9 am.

Along with the launch of the new e-filing portal, the Income Tax Department will also provide free of cost ITR preparation software for Forms ITR-1, ITR-2 and 4. In a statement earlier, the Ministry of Finance had said, “Free of cost ITR preparation software available with interactive questions to help taxpayers for ITRs 1, 4 (online and offline) and ITR 2 (offline) to begin with; Facility for preparation of ITRs 3, 5, 6, 7 will be made available shortly.”

Income Tax Return (ITR) filing for salaried employees during work from home 2021: The Income Tax filing season has started. This year, the government has launched a new e-filing portal to make tax filing easy for all categories of taxpayers. In normal times, the due date for ITR filing for salaried taxpayers remains 31st July of every year. However, due to the Covid pandemic, the due date has been extended to 30th September 2021 this year.

Amid lockdowns, a large number of salaried employees are working from home. For such salaried taxpayers, there are some necessary rules they should be aware of. Take a look:
Form No. 16 and Income Tax Return (ITR)
Sujit Bangar, Founder Taxbuddy.com, said if the income of a salaried employee crosses Rs 2, 50,000, he needs to pay tax on the income above this limit. Therefore, your employer deducts income tax (TDS) from salary and deposits with Government. The details of such taxable income, deductions and TDS are provided by the employer to an employee in a specific form which is known as Form 16.

Bangar said that this year, employer is required to issue Form 16 to employees before 15th July. “It should be kept in mind that this is not an ITR. You may use this form for filing your ITR. The details mentioned in this Form as per those you have submitted to your employer. Your taxable income may be more or lesser than that in Form 16 provided you have documentary proofs against your claims.”

New e-filing website (www.incometax.gov.in) launch: The Income Tax Department will launch its new e-filing portal www.incometax.gov.in today (7th June, 2021). It will provide convenience and a “modern, seamless experience” to taxpayers. “Dear taxpayer, The Income Tax Department is happy to inform the launch of its new e-filing portal www.incometax.gov.in on 7th June 2021,” the Tax Department said in messages sent to taxpayers.

However, the new e-filing website link was not opening till 11.30 am today. “We are as excited about the new portal as our users! We are at the final stages in the roll-out of the new portal and it will be available shortly. We appreciate your patience as we work towards making it operational soon,” the tax department tweeted at 9 am.

Along with the launch of the new e-filing portal, the Income Tax Department will also provide free of cost ITR preparation software for Forms ITR-1, ITR-2 and 4. In a statement earlier, the Ministry of Finance had said, “Free of cost ITR preparation software available with interactive questions to help taxpayers for ITRs 1, 4 (online and offline) and ITR 2 (offline) to begin with; Facility for preparation of ITRs 3, 5, 6, 7 will be made available shortly.”

Finance Ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations reached a landmark accord on Saturday backing the creation of a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15%, an agreement that could then form the basis of a worldwide deal. Such a deal aims to end what U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has called a “30-year race to the bottom on corporate tax rates” as countries compete to lure multinationals.

WHY A GLOBAL MINIMUM TAX?
Major economies are aiming to discourage multinationals from shifting profits – and tax revenues – to low-tax countries regardless of where their sales are made. Increasingly, income from intangible sources such as drug patents, software and royalties on intellectual property has migrated to these jurisdictions, allowing companies to avoid paying higher taxes in their traditional home countries.
WHERE ARE THE TALKS AT?
The G7 accord feeds into a much broader, existing effort. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been coordinating tax negotiations among 140 countries for years on rules for taxing cross-border digital services and curbing tax base erosion, including a global corporate minimum tax.The OECD and G20 countries aim to reach consensus on both by mid-year, but the talks on a global corporate minimum are technically simpler and less contentious. If a broad consensus is reached, it will be extremely hard for any low-tax country to try and block an agreement.The minimum is expected to make up the bulk of the $50 billion-$80 billion in extra tax that the OECD estimates firms will end up paying globally under deals on both fronts.

The income tax department on Thursday said it has issued Rs 26,276 crore refunds to more than 15.47 lakh taxpayers in two months of the current fiscal. Of this, personal income tax refunds worth Rs 7,538 crore have been issued in over 15.02 lakh cases.

Corporate tax refunds of Rs 18,738 crore have been issued to 44,531 taxpayers.

"CBDT issues refunds of over Rs 26,276 crore to more than 15.47 lakh taxpayers between 1st April, 2021 to 31st May, 2021," the income tax department tweeted.

The I-T department did not specify for which financial year the refunds pertained to. However, it is believed that the refunds were for tax returns filed for the 2019-20 fiscal.

A day after the US deferred its plan to slap punitive tariffs on six countries, including India, by six months for imposing a digital services tax (DST) on e-commerce companies, India’s commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan expected a global understanding on the levy soon.

Asked about the US move, Wadhawan told reporters that a global agreement on the taxation matter relating to e-commerce is important, as it “doesn’t just concern India but many others”. The OECD has already taken an initiative to hammer out an international agreement on such taxations, he added.
In a report in January, the USTR office had claimed the DST imposed by India, Italy and Turkey discriminated against American companies and were inconsistent with international tax principles. India had strongly refuted the USTR claims and asserted that its equalisation levy or the so-called ‘Google tax’ was “non-discriminatory”, had only prospective application and didn’t specifically target American companies.

CBDT chairman J B Mohapatra will hold the charge of member investigations in the newly-formed board that frames policy and is the administrative body for the Income Tax Department, an official order said on Thursday.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), under the Union finance ministry, has two vacancies at present.

According to the order, Mohapatra, holding the additional charge of CBDT chairman, will have the "substantive" charge of member investigations, which has superintendence over the country-wide probe wings, intelligence and criminal investigation directorates of the tax department.

Former CBDT chief P C Mody and his predecessor Sushil Chandra also held the charge in an additional capacity during their tenures.

Due to the disruption in economic and financial activities after the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed to counter the second Covid wave, the government has announced extension in the various tax related compliance dates, including the due date of filing Income Tax Return (ITR).

Instead of July 31, 2021, the due date for filing ITR for the Assessment Year (AY) 2021-22 will now be September 30, 2021.
“The Government has vide Circular No. 9 of 2021 F. NO.225/49/2021-ITA-II dated 20th May 2021 provided relaxation with regards to due dates of filing of Income Tax returns considering the ongoing severe pandemic situation in the country. In accordance with the same, the due date for furnishing of Income Tax return for AY 2021-22 by persons (other than company) not subject to any audit has been extended from July 31, 2021 to September 30, 2021.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended the deadlines to file income tax returns for the financial year 2021. The last date of filing Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) for the fourth quarter of financial year 2020-21 has been extended to June 30, according to the circular. Earlier, the due of filing the TDS was May 31. “This is a major relief for the TDS deductors since these returns involve lot of records and data to be reported correctly," Sujit Bangar, founder, Taxbuddy.com mentioned.

Accordingly, the due date of issuance of Form 16 has also been extended to July 15 from June 15.

Key things to remember while filing TDS returns

1) In the latest TDS return filing forms, one more column has been added for those employees who want to opt for the new tax regime. Accordingly, at the time of filing the TDS return, the employer (deductor) has to select the option for those who are going to opt for the new tax regime, said Abhishek Soni, co-founder and chief executive officer, Tax2win.

The Income Tax Return (ITR) filing process is paused for six days after scrapping of the e-filing site – incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in – from the midnight of May 31, 2021. The filing process will resume from June 7, 2021, a day after launch of the new e-filing site – incometax.gov.in – on June 6, 2021.

“Considering the overhaul and migration or transition of existing e-filing portal to a completely different platform, a blackout period for usage of the existing portal has been announced by the Government from 1 June 2021 to 6 June 2021 during which the existing income tax portal would not be available for usage to the taxpayers. In order to avoid any inconvenience to taxpayers, the Revenue Department has issued directions to fix any hearing of cases or compliance only from 10 June, 2021 onward.

Central Board of Direct Taxes member Jagannath Mohapatra will officiate as the chairman of the Board for three months or till the time a new chairman is appointed, the finance ministry said in a notification Monday.

Present chairman Prakash Chandra Mody, a 1982-batch Indian revenue services officer, will retire today. Mody was appointed chairman in February 2019. He was reappointed as chairman last year and was given a three-month extension in March this year, which ended today.

“Consequent upon completion of tenure of Shri Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on 31.05.2021, it has been decided with the approval of the competent authority that Shri Jagannath Bidyadhar Mohapatra, Member, CBDT shall discharge the duties and responsibilities of the post of Chairman, CBDT in addition to his own duties for a period of three months or till appointment of a regular Chairman, whichever is earlier,” the notification said.

Mohapatra, a 1984 batch Indian revenue services officer was appointed as member in the Board last week, along with Rashmi Saxena Sahni and Anuja Sarangi, filling up vacant positions.

The Income Tax Department on Saturday said it will launch on June 7 its new portal e-filing 2.0, which will be mobile friendly, have pre-filled ITR form and simplified utility.

"Income Tax Department will launch its new e-filing portal http://incometax.gov.in on 7th June'21. It will replace the existing portal of the Department http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in," the I-T department tweeted.


Giving the salient features of the "e-filing 2.0 portal", the I-T Department said there will be a "all new mobile app" and taxpayers will have a step-by-step guidance with user manuals and videos.

Besides, multiple options for on-portal tax payments, multiple options for login, helpdesk support and chatbot are the features in the portal.

Union Budget 2021 introduced significant amendments in the provisions relating to the taxation of slump sale transactions. One of the key amendments is in relation to computation of consideration value for slump sale taxation. Earlier, the consideration actually paid or received on the slump sale was considered for determining the capital gains tax on the sale.

The Finance Act, 2021 has however provided that to compute the tax arising on account of such slump sale, the Fair Market Value (FMV) of the capital assets (being an undertaking or division transferred by way of slump sale) shall be deemed to be full value of the consideration. However, the methodology to compute FMV was not prescribed by the Finance Act, 2021.

While the past 15 months have caused much pain and disruption to one and all, it was also a period when governments across the world approved stimulus packages in the trillions, markets surged on a deluge of liquidity and M&A activity boomed. India was no exception — we saw several public market transactions; many new unicorns were created and there was hectic M&A activity across sectors. Interestingly, some of these transactions in FY 20-21 were structured as a 'slump sale’. Simply put, a slump sale is the transfer of business from one entity to another for an agreed value, payable in cash or kind.

Several slump sale transactions were signed and closed while others were still in progress in FY 20-21, when Budget 2021 proposed two changes that impacted slump sales in a fundamental way — (1) Goodwill (premium paid on a business purchase) would no longer be tax depreciable and (2) the tax law will define the consideration paid for a slump sale as its Fair Market Value (‘FMV’). For example, even if the consideration for a slump sale was agreed to be 100, tax law could override business contract and say that the FMV was 125. And these changes were effective from April 1, 2020 meaning that they had retrospective effect. The final catch was that the methodology for computing FMV in a slump sale would be notified in due course, so these rules were eagerly awaited indeed.

The Income Tax Department on Wednesday said it has issued Rs 25,301 crore-worth refunds to more than 15.45 lakh taxpayers so far this fiscal.

Out of the total amount, personal income tax refunds to the tune of Rs 7,494 crore have been issued in over 15 lakh cases. Corporate tax refunds of Rs 17,807 crore have been issued to 44,140 taxpayers.

“CBDT issues refunds of over Rs 25,301 crore to more than 15.45 lakh taxpayers between 1st April, 2021 to 24th May, 2021,” the Income Tax Department said in a tweet.

The I-T department did not specify about which financial year the refunds pertained to. However, it is believed that the refunds are for tax returns filed for 2019-20 fiscal.

In the previous fiscal, the department had issued Rs 2.62 lakh crore-worth refunds to more than 2.38 crore taxpayers.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes has notified a new rule for computation of fair market value of capital assets in slump sale.

As per the amendment made to the income tax rules, the new Rule 11UAE under section 50B has given two formulae for calculation and has stated that the fair market value will be the higher among the two values.

The rule essentially provides that all assets of the business undertaking other than five specific categories of assets - immovable property, jewelry, shares, securities and artistic work – will be valued essentially based on book value.

On the other hand, fair market value of these five categories will be determined as per existing valuation rules, assuming these assets were being transferred individually.

“The new valuation rules for valuation of business undertaking in slump sale cases, now make tax planning in those cases more difficult, where businesses holding high value immovable property, shares or other specified assets in their books at low historical cost,” said Shailesh Kumar, Partner, Nangia & Co LLP.

He added that in all such cases, businesses will need to pay tax considering fair market value of specified assets, irrespective of actual transaction price, if such transaction price is lower than fair market value.

Denying that the government of India has purportedly asked state-owned banks to withdraw funds from foreign currency accounts abroad in anticipation of the potential seizure of such accounts with regard to the legal dispute with Cairn Energy Plc, the Finance Ministry on Sunday said India is defending its case “vigorously” and that it had never agreed to arbitrate a “national tax dispute”.

The Finance Ministry also said that it is open for an amicable solution to the dispute within the country’s legal framework.
“The Government of India is vigorously defending its case in this legal dispute. It is a fact that the Government has filed an application on March 22, 2021 to set aside the highly flawed December 2020 international arbitral award in The Hague Court of Appeal,” it said.