Changes brought in by Budget’2014 in TDS Provisions

The Indian Income Tax Act’1961 provides for chargeability of tax on the total income of a person on an annual basis. The concept of TDS requires that the person, on whom responsibility has been cast, is to deduct tax at the appropriate rates, from payments of specific nature which are being made to a specified recipient. The deducted sum is required to be deposited to the credit of the Central Government. Every person responsible for deducting tax is required to file quarterly statements of TDS for the quarters ending on 30th June, 30th September, 31st December and 31st March in each Financial Year. downloadSection 200 provides that any person, who has deducted any sum at source as provided in Sections 192 to 196D, is obliged to pay the tax deducted at source to the credit of Central Government.Currently, a deductor is allowed to file correction statement for rectification of the information furnished in the original TDS statement as per the Centralised Processing of Statements of Tax Deducted at Source Scheme, 2013 notified vide Notification No.03/2013 dated 15th January, 2013. In the Budget’2014 it has been proposed to amend section 200 of the Income-tax Act in order to bring clarity relating to filing of correction statement of TDS and provides that a correction statement for rectification of any mistake or to add, delete or update the information may be furnished in the statement in the specified form and manner. Section 200A of the Income-tax Act is proposed to be amended to incorporate processes relating to filing of corrected statements of tax deducted at source. In case a person fails to deduct tax at source or after deducting fails to pay the tax to the Central Government account as prescribed by the Income-tax Act, he may be deemed to be an assessee in default in respect of this tax. The existing provisions of section 201(1) of the Act provide for passing of an order deeming a payer as assessee in default.  Further,Clause (i) of section 201(3) of the Act provides that no order under section 201(1) of the Act shall be passed after expiry of two years from the end of the financial year in which the TDS statement has been filed. The amendment in the provisions proposes to omit this time limit. Generally, the defaults found in TDS statement consist of missing transactions, therefore the Government felt that there is no rationale for not treating the deductor as assessee in default in respect of the TDS default after two years only on the basis that the deductor has filed TDS statement Further currently Section 201(3) provides that, in cases the statement referred to in section 200 has not been filed, no orders could be passed at any time after the expiry of six years from the end of the financial year in which payment is made or credit is given. The amendment proposes to increase this time limit by a further period of one year. The existing provisions contained in sub-section (1) of section 271H provide the circumstances in which the person shall be liable to pay penalty, but do not specify the authority which would be competent to levy the penalty under the said section. It is proposed that section 271H(1) will be amended so as to provide that the penalty shall be levied by the Assessing Officer.