New
Delhi: Salaried employees will no longer have to chase
their employers for Form 16 in June before filing their
income-tax returns.
Instead
of the employer, the income-tax department will now issue
a tax-deducted at source (TDS) certificate to the salaried
class.
The
Finance Bill seeks to amend Section 200 of the Income
Tax Act and states that any employer deducting TDS will
have to file quarterly statements to the income-tax authorities.
The taxman will then prepare and deliver a statement to
every person whose income tax has been deducted.
An
advocate said the employer would not be in the picture
and the onus would be on employees to ensure that they
had the necessary TDS certificates to file their returns.
"With
the limited machinery of the income-tax authorities, it
is questionable whether the department will be able to
deliver the statements, causing a lot of chaos and harassment
to individual employees," he added.
An
income-tax lawyer said that the move was aimed at making
sure employers were depositing the money after deducting
it from employees.
"There
have been cases where companies do not deposit the money
with the income-tax authorities even after deducting TDS
from employees'' salaries. The move will block this practice,"
he pointed out.
The
fine print in the Finance Bill states the prescribed income-tax
authority shall, within the prescribed time after the
end of each financial year, prepare and deliver to every
person from whose income the tax has been deducted or
in respect of whose income the tax has been paid, a statement
in the prescribed form specifying the amount of tax deducted
or paid and such other particulars as may be prescribed.
The government also wishes to do away with TDS certificates
in order
to enable tax returns to be filed through the Internet.
So, this move has to be seen as a first step towards facilitating
the process of computerisation.
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