I-T dept allays apprehensions on reopening of large cases of HRA claims

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has allayed any apprehensions about retrospective taxation and the reopening of large cases of house rent allowance (HRA) claims.

Certain instances of mismatch of information as filed by the taxpayer and as available with the income tax department have come to the notice of the department as part of its routine exercise of verification of data. In such cases, the department has alerted the taxpayers to enable them to take corrective action, the CBDT said in a statement.

Data analysis was carried out in some high-value cases of mismatch between the rent paid by the employee and receipt of rent by the recipient for the financial year 2020-21. This verification was done in a small number of cases without reopening the bulk of cases, especially since the updated return for the financial year could have been filed by the taxpayers concerned only till March 31, 2024.

It is underlined that the objective of the e-verification was to alert cases of mismatches of information for FY 2020-21 only without affecting the others, the CBDT said.

It is reiterated that there is no special drive to re-open such cases, the board said.