Telephone may be taken out of one-by-six I-T scheme
Owning a telephone as one of the criteria under the one-by-six scheme for mandatory filing of Income Tax returns is likely to be withdrawn in the forthcoming Budget.
"Telephone is no longer a luxury item. Many people, who do not fall under the tax net, now have phone connections.
Therefore, making it a criterion for filing tax returns only adds to paperwork," official sources said in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Under the one-by-six scheme, any person living in an urban area would have to mandatorily file IT returns if he possesses either a house, car, telephone, credit card and club membership and has travelled abroad during the year, even if he does not have taxable income.
Possessing a phone, however, was acting as a dampener to the increase of tele-density as many in rural areas did not take telephone connections fearing harassment from Income Tax departments, sources said.
The communication ministry, which has laid down a roadmap for increasing tele-density to 15 per thousand by 2011 from a meagre 2.5, had earlier asked Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to take out telephone from the one-by-six scheme.
Currently there are as many as 25 million income tax assessees. But this fiscal, nearly 8 million of them have not filed returns. Apparently, many of them do not fall under the tax net.
There are also certain legal difficulties in enforcing the one-by-six formula as the law does not provide for any penalty for non-filing of returns to persons not having taxable income.
PTI
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