Covid-19: Centre allows 100% tax rebate for contributions to PM CARES

The central government allowed 100 per cent tax deduction for donations made to newly instituted Covid-19 relief fund, PM CARES Fund, through an ordinance issued on Tuesday. Earlier, the government had announced 50 per cent deduction.
 

This brings its tax treatment on a par with the Prime Minister National Relief Fund.
 

The ordinance, called Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020, also gave effect to a slew of tax compliance related relief measures announced by FM Nirmala Sitharaman on March 24 in response to the pandemic.
 

The relief includes extension of GST returns filing, direct tax dispute resolution scheme Vivad se Vishwas and Aadhar-PAN linkage till June 30.
 

It also offered a reduced interest rate of 9 per cent, down from 18 per cent, for late filing of tax deducted at source, advance tax, equalisation levy and securities transaction tax. The last date for filing belated ITR for FY19 has also been extended from March 31 to June 30. The three-month extension covers the Income Tax Act, Wealth Tax Act, Benami Transaction Act and Black Money Act.
 

‘No coercion on taxpayers’
 

The finance ministry has defended recent guidelines of the CBDT to field officers on working from home, after staff associations described these as tactics to pressurise assessees to pay dues.