Most suggestions on IT Act were about simplifying language: CBDT Chairman
New Delhi, Feb 2: An Income-Tax Department internal committee reviewing the old direct tax law to pave the way for a new one has "largely" received suggestions for "simplifying" the language, better "structuring" the provisions and enlarging the ambit of schemes like presumptive taxation, CBDT Chairman Ravi Agrawal said Sunday.
Speaking to PTI during a post-Budget interview at his North Block office, Agrawal said the panel also "studied" the deliberations and processes of countries like the UK, Australia and some others where a similar tax law simplification exercise was undertaken.
During her last year's Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a comprehensive review of the Income-Tax Act, 1961.
The aim of this review was to make the bulky Act -- with 298 sections and 23 chapters at present -- concise, clear and easy to understand, leading to reduction in tax disputes, litigation and providing greater tax certainty to taxpayers.
An internal committee of the I-T Department was subsequently created which invited suggestions from the public in four categories -- simplification of language, litigation reduction, compliance reduction and redundant or obsolete provisions.
Sitharaman, in her Saturday Budget speech for 2025-26 fiscal, announced the government will introduce the new Income Tax bill in Parliament this week, replacing the 1961 law. The CBDT chief said the internal committee "largely" received suggestions seeking "simplification" of the language of the Act, about the structure of various provisions and wanting more areas where presumptive taxation could be made applicable.
"So, these are some suggestions that have been received. We have also studied some acts of foreign countries where simplification exercises had been done such as the UK, Australia, etc."
"We have also taken inputs from the industry and associations (trade bodies) and then we have analysed that whatever best is possible can be incorporated...that has been done," Agrawal said.
The presumptive taxation scheme works to provide relief to small taxpayers from the tedious work of maintaining regular books of account under certain circumstances. A person opting for this scheme can declare income at a prescribed rate and, in lieu of that, is relieved from maintaining books of accounts for audit by tax authorities.
Talking about the new I-T Bill, the CBDT chief said it will be "more presentable and the way it has been done is to make it easy for the taxpayer to actually go through the provisions of the Act."
"It (I-T Bill) will also remove redundancies that were in the (1961 act)...and also sees that certain old provisions, where sunset has already been done, can be removed."
"Structurally, there is no change as its (new and the old Act) all a continuum. The new version of the Act, from whenever it is implemented, if there are certain obligations for the earlier years, then it would be basically flowing from the 1961 Act and there would be some overlap period also," Agrawal said.
That "usually happens" in all the statutes whenever there is a change and repealing and saving clauses are there. That's a normal sort of a thing, he explained.
The CBDT chief also said that the tax department and its authorities have been asked to follow an approach that has been acronymed as PRUDENT.