Salaried Employees Can Be Punished For Incorrect Tax Returns – IT Dept.

If we track the income tax data of India, then we will find that salaried employees are the ones who pay the maximum amount of tax. Religiously, consistently, they are paying their taxes and contributing to the nation’s growth.

At the same time, as reported earlier, there are tons of tax evaders, mainly fraudster businessmen, who have stolen hundreds of crores of tax money and escaped India.

Now, instead of catching these tax evaders, and Income tax Dept. has decided to target the honest salaried employees, and the process of warnings, threats have started.

Why IT Dept. is killing the golden goose here?

IT Dept. Threatens Salaried Employees!

In a terse, crude and direct notification for all salaried employees, Income Tax Dept. has threatened salaried employees of severe punishment, if they file incorrect tax returns.

The notification said,

“If the department notices any fraudulent claims in the returns, such taxpayers may be punishable under various provisions of the Income-Tax Act.”

In the most likely scenario, IT Dept. has taken note of minor ‘manipulations’ which humble salaried employees do, to somewhat relax tax burdens, such as using house rent to get tax reliefs.

This warning from tax department can be also attributed to a minor ‘scam’, which was unearthed in Bengaluru, where a corrupt CA was caught misinforming salaried employees.

Salaried Employees Are Soft Target?

These cases are rare, and economically, not much dent it makes in the overall tax structure, where only 1.7% of Indians are paying tax. At the most, a salaried employee already burdened with loans and EMIs can save few thousand rupees, even if she or he uses such unethical means.

The notification said,

“In all such cases of high risk, the Department may examine and verify the details submitted by taxpayers in their ITR, subsequent to processing of returns in CPC,”

At a time when legend such as Nirav Modi has successfully robbed Rs 12,000 crore from PNB, and subsequently looted hundreds of crores of tax money; Vijay Mallya is still absconding with Rs 9000 crore debt and thousands of tax evaders are enjoying their loot, such strict warning against a section on taxpayers who are regularly paying their tax seems a bit harsh. And unwarranted.

Do you think IT Dept. is targeting salaried employees because they are a soft target?

Do let us know your opinions by commenting right here!