New Delhi: In an affidavit filed in Delhi High Court, the Finance Ministry has said its Tax Return Preparers (TRP) scheme did not infringe on the rights of the Chartered Accountants or other tax professionals.
Defending its pet project to train educated youths as Tax Return Preparers, the Ministry told the court that TRP scheme has been introduced only with a view to help in preparing and filing returns of small and marginal individuals and HUF taxpayers for more tax compliance.
The Ministry said this in reply to a PIL, filed by a Chartered Accountant, asking directions from the court to stop the scheme.
The petitioner had contended that the scheme encroached on the jurisdiction of Chartered Accountants, and claimed they alone were eligible to prepare tax returns.
The TRP scheme envisaged a mere nine-day training to graduates, who would practice as CAs in filing returns with the Income Tax Department, thereby giving a go-by to the canon and law in its true spirit, the petitioner had argued.
Terming the very scheme contrary to the provisions of Chartered Accountants Act, the petitioner had contended that its implementation would render CAs jobless.
The Delhi High Court, on November 20, had issued notices to Finance Ministry and Director General of Income Tax.
Arguing that the PIL should be rejected, the Ministry said in the affidavit that the scheme was as per the provisions of Section 139B of Income Tax Act and no public interest was involved.
The Ministry's document said that none of the statutory functions of Chartered Accountants have been affected with the launch of the TRP scheme as preparing and filing of IT return was not a statutory function of CAs alone.
Section 139(1) of the IT Act casts a liability or onus on an assessee to prepare and furnish IT return by himself or he can get it prepared and filed through any other person, including a professional like CA, advocate or IT practitioner. Therefore, the assertion that only CAs were authorised to prepare and file IT returns was incorrect, it said.
The affidavit, further, said a committee appointed by CBDT had submitted that 80 lakh taxpayers stopped filing returns and many more may not file their returns. Hence, a simpler mechanism needed to be evolved which could help these individuals to file returns, it said.
As per the scheme, those who have done graduation in commerce, law, economics, mathematics and statistics will be trained as Tax Return Preparers by the I-T department in collaboration with NIIT in a nine-day training programme.
About 5,000 TRPs were to be trained on a pilot basis from this financial year at 100 centres across 80 cities.
Comments
0 comment