The Central Board of Direct Taxes on 16th September 2022, issued revised Guidelines for Compounding of offences under the Income-tax Act, 1961(the ‘Act’) with reference to various offences covered under the prosecution provisions of the Act.
Some of the major changes made for the benefit of taxpayers include making offence punishable under Section 276 of the Act as compoundable. Further, the scope of eligibility for compounding of cases has been relaxed whereby case of an applicant who has been convicted with imprisonment for less than 2 years being previously non-compoundable, has now been made compoundable. The discretion available with the competent authority has also been suitably restricted.
The time limit for acceptance of compounding applications has been relaxed from the earlier limit of 24 months to 36 months now, from the date of filing of complaint. Procedural complexities have also been reduced/simplified.
Specific upper limits have been introduced for the compounding fee covering defaults across several provisions of the Act. Additional compounding charges in the nature of penal interest @ 2% per month up to 3 months and 3% per month beyond 3 months have been reduced to 1% and 2% respectively.
Further, It is clarified that the compounding charges are payable in addition to the outstanding tax, interest, penalty and any other sum, if any payable or imposable as per provisions of the Act. For the purpose of computation of the compounding fee, the word “tax” means- tax including surcharge and any cess, by whatever name called, as applicable.