Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 16: After giving a final notice to all employees who committed fraud in Income Tax, the Union Territory government is preparing lists of all such employees who were responsible for taking refunds through fraudulent means.
Highly placed sources said that the Income Tax Department has asked the J&K Government to take strict action against such erring employees.
“During analyzing income returns of government employees for the years 2021 and 2022, Income Tax authorities have detected many employees managed to get refunds through fraudulent manners as they filed Income Tax returns fraudulently”, sources said.
The analysis of data revealed that a large number of individual taxpayers, particularly those who derive income from salaries, have claimed excessive deductions under various Sections of the Income Tax Act viz. 80C, 80D, 80DD, 80DDB, 80EB, 80E, 80EE, 80G, 80GGC etc without actually being eligible for such deductions. This way they have claimed the refunds of Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) made by their DDOs, either substantially or fully.
Reports said that the number of Income Tax refund claims of employees has increased manifold in the last two years as the employees are utilizing the services of some tax professionals wherein TDS deducted from their salaries by ODO is refunded by using various sections of Income Tax on the basis of fabricated documents.
These bogus refund claims have been viewed seriously by the Income-tax Department and details of such employees who have claimed refunds have been prepared and intimated to the Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir.
However, it has been felt that before their names were forwarded to their respective departments time relaxation were given to such claimants till 31-03-2023 that a rectified lTR as (ITR-U) may be filed otherwise it shall have some serious repercussions followed by Departmental inquiries and imposition of penalties U/S 270(A) and U/S 276 (C) of Income Tax Act 1961.
As the deadline for rectifying false claims has ended, Income Tax Department has complete details of all such erring employees, who belong to Education, Health, PDD, PHE, Cooperatives, Sports, Tourism, Industry, PWD, Police, and other departments of J&K Government.
Such cases of bogus refunds may lead to scrutiny and recoveries of demand besides the levy of penalty under Section 270A of the Income Tax Act, which is 200 percent of the tax levied. Further, the case of such employees may also be taken up for prosecution under Section 276C of the IT Act. |
