I-T dept tool to identify 'specified persons' who have to pay higher taxes

The income tax department has developed a new utility to help TDS deductors and TCS collectors identify the 'specified persons' on whom higher rate of taxes will be levied from July 1.

The Budget 2021 had brought in a provision which mandated that non-filers of income tax returns for past two fiscal years would be subjected to higher tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) rate if such tax deduction was Rs 50,000 or more in each of those two years.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued a circular on Monday on implementation of Sections 206AB and 206CCA with respect to higher tax deduction/collection for certain non-filers.

"New functionality issued for compliance checks for sec 206AB & 206CCA to ease compliance burden of tax deductors/collectors," the I-T department had tweeted.

The CBDT said that since the TDS deductor or the TCS collector would be required to do a due diligence on whether the deductee or collectee is a 'specified person', this could lead to extra compliance burden on them.

The new functionality -- 'Compliance check for sections 206AB and 206CCA' -- would ease this compliance burden, the CBDT said.

Through the functionality, the TDS deductor or TCS collector can feed PAN of the deductee or collectee on the functionality and get to know whether the deductee or collectee is a 'specified person'.

The income tax department has prepared a list of 'specified persons' in the beginning of financial year 2021-22, taking 2018-19 and 2019-20 as the two relevant previous years.

The list contains names of taxpayers who did not file return of income for both assessment years 2019-20 and 2020-21 and have aggregate TDS and TCS of Rs 50,000 or more in each of these two previous years.