New Delhi, Oct 20: Finally some relief for the beast of burden — the salaried class — no more income tax scrutiny for them. The Finance Ministry has decided to exclude this segment from the purview of scrutiny during the current fiscal, marking a departure from the past where some of these cases were picked up for scrutiny. Salary returns will not figure in the separate and fresh set of scrutiny guidelines to be issued shortly for non-corporate assessees, which include firms, individuals, Hindu-undivided families and association of persons, among others.

Tax is deducted at source for salaried employees, whose contributions to the personal tax kitty are substantial. A conscious decision has been taken to specifically exclude salary returns from scrutiny as the intention is to minimise harassment. The Kelkar committee on direct taxes had projected the number of assessees filing return of income during ‘03-04 at over 2.7 crore. Of the total returns, an estimated 1.1 crore (roughly 40%) constituted salary returns. The CBDT has projected a higher assessee base of around 3.4 crore, which is expected to top five crore in ‘04-05.

Scrutiny norms formulated for non-corporate assessees are broadly patterned on the guidelines already issued for corporate assessees during ‘03-04. Apart from compulsory scrutiny, non-company and non-salary returns will be taken up for random scrutiny. A cap of 2% has been imposed on the total number of cases to be taken up for scrutiny in the current year. Bureau Report