Govt to introduce Direct Taxes Code in next session

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, on Wednesday, said the Government intends introducing the Direct Taxes Code in the forthcoming Monsoon Session of the Parliament.

Addressing the Central Direct Tax Advisory Committee, Mukherjee said the ministry had identified nine core areas of concern expressed by various stakeholders.

He assured that all these concerns have been taken into consideration while redrafting the code.

Mukherjee revealed that the code would soon be put in the public domain.

He informed the Committee that two more centralized processing centers (CPC) would be set up during the current year.

The first one at Bangalore has enabled faster processing of tax returns and better records management.

Mukherjee further stated that the Refund Banker Scheme would be extended to more cities this year.

The scheme enables speedier refunds directly to the bank accounts of tax payers.

The scheme, which was introduced in nine more cities last year, is now available in 15 cities.

Mukherjee pointed out that several steps have been taken to improve exchange of tax-related information and bilateral tax cooperation with several countries.

Mukherjee said the Government has written to 65 countries to make exchange of information more effective, and to remove the secrecy clause.

He also informed that twenty low or no-tax countries have been identified for negotiating and signing tax information exchange agreement.