Telephone Bonanza for Taxmen : Blackberry/Broadband/3g Data card for Officers, Free mobile connections for all.

Flash News : According to our source, the scheme is likely to be inaugurated on 23rd November 2010 and sim cards will be distributed among staff members immediately after the ceremony, on 23rd itself. 


View the Official Communication
As usual lion’s share to be enjoyed by officers.

Income Tax Dept is introducing “Project Tarang” which will provide Blackberry Handsets to CCIT and CITs, Broadband connections in the residence of Group A officers, 3G Data Card for officers who got Laptop earlier, and mobile connections to all employees including officers.

The scheme is made with BSNL/MTNL as service provider.

Salient Features of this project :

1.                  All calls made from BSNL/MTNL mobile/landline to BSNL/MTNL mobile/landline will be free on all India basis without any STD and Roaming charges.

2.                  3G datacard with 5GB free download per month.

3.                  On every mobile connection, there will be 400 minute free calls to other service provider.

4.                  SMS to BSNL/MTNL will be free.

5.                  On every landline connection there will be 300 free calls to other service provider’s mobile/landline.

6.                  Broadband Connections will be of unlimited data usage.

In excess of the limit mentioned above charges will be borne by the employee.

It is clearly visible from the above features that the majority of the privileges will be enjoyed by the officers of the department as usual. It may be mentioned that they have earlier got laptop each without offering anything for the majority portion of employees and the operational vehicles are being used as personal property of the officers without any protest from the service association.

It is to be see whether the ITEF, the one and only service association for non gazetted employees will take it granted or not as they have done in the earlier occasion {At the time of distributing laptops to officers depriving the  common employees who were mainly responsible for achieving the target collecton}.

Source :  Letter of Directorate of Infrastructure F No. DIT[Inf]/BSNL/2010-11/1206 Dated 01.11.2010 to all CCITs.
Total No of Connections

S.No.	Charge	Mobile	Bkack Berry	3GData	Broad .band	Land line. office	Res
1	Gujarath	3550	60	650	340	1340	370
2	Karnataka	2340	42	435	240	900	270
3	MP	1600	20	280	150	590	170
4	Orissa	640	13	130	75	260	90
5	NW. Region.	2960	46	545	275	1040	310
6	Tamilnadu	2330	51	690	390	1250	440
7	Kerala	1145	15	215	120	440	140
8	Delhi	4415	132	780	480	1740	540
9	N.E. Region	930	7	180	95	350	110
10	AP	2400	36	410	210	830	230
11	Rajasthan	1500	28	320	170	620	190
12	Western UP	2080	28	330	160	670	180
13	West Bengal	5835	55	820	430	1860	480
14	Eastern UP	1310	23	200	75	260	90
15	Mumbai	6500	120	1030	565	2240	620
16	Bihar	1320	17	240	145	490	160
17	Pune	2500	35	400	215	845	235
18	Vidharba	750	11	150	85	275	90
Total		44105	739	7805	4220	16000	4

Income Tax Dept. Exam postponed again, will commence from 29.11.2010. Last Date of application extended.

On account of unforeseen circumstances, the Departmental Examination 2010 for ITOs/ITIs/Ministerial Staff has been rescheduled. The said examination is now slated to commence from 29th November 2010 and will end on 8th December 2010.


Download the Order and Revised Time Table


Download the Order for extension of Last Date of receipt of application

IT Return : Due Date extended to 15th October 2010.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes have extended the due date of filing income tax returns for the assessment year 2010-11 from 30th September 2010 up to 15th October 2010. The due date has been extended in view of disturbance to general life caused by floods.

View the Order

Extra 1% EPF interest to be taxed.

The government’s surprise gift for workers isn’t much of a gift after all. The labour ministry has hiked the employees’ provident fund, or EPF, rate to 9.5%, but a finance ministry notification says that anything in excess of 8.5% will be taxed. 

The labour ministry is, however, confident that the tax department will renotify the higher rate, as otherwise a lot of contentious issues will come up. Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge had declared a 9.5% bonanza on provident fund deposits on September 15 — marking a one percentage point increase in the rate from the 8.5% paid in the last five years. 

But even before the EPF board met under Kharge, the Central Board of Direct Taxes had notified a tax-free PF rate of 8.5% for 2010-11 — effective from September 1. This means that the 1% extra income (or Rs 1,700 crore) that the labour ministry has projected as a gift to the workforce, would be fully taxable. This is the first time ever that income from provident fund would be taxable, if the tax department does not notify the higher rate. 

Historically, the tax-free PF rate notified by the income tax department has never been lower than the EPF rate declared for the year. 

In recent years, while the EPF rate was at 8.50%, the ceiling was at 9.50%. This year, when the EPF rate has been hiked to 9.50%, the ceiling on tax free provident fund returns has been lowered to 8.50%. “The incremental PF return would be taxable in the hands of the worker. This has never happened before,” said Bhupendra Meel, associate vice president in charge of retirement trust solutions at AK Capital Services. 

But levying the tax would be far from easy. The PF interest would be credited to workers’ accounts at the end of the year. The trust in charge of the PF would be responsible for deducting the applicable tax at that time. 

Usually, the income tax department notifies a tax-free PF rate for the whole year. But this year, it’s only applicable from September 1. So the 9.5% provident fund return would be tax-free from April to August, but taxable thereafter. “For company-run trusts, this would be a headache — calculating the tax liability on 1% PF income for seven months,” said Amit Gopal, senior vice president at India Life Capital. 

But the most acute problem will be faced by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation – which manages 5 crore PF accounts. 

Firstly, EPFO simply doesn’t have the systems in place to deduct tax at source. All PF account withdrawals before completing five years of service, are fully taxable, as per existing income tax rules. But the rule has never been implemented because of EPFO’s unreliable manual record-keeping systems. 

Even if EPFO could deduct tax at source before crediting interest to members, the applicable income tax bracket would vary for its members. For every deduction made, it would also have to give workers a Form 16 statement. 

For an organization that doesn’t even give members annual account slips on time, mailing 5 crore ‘Form 16’ sheets would be physically impossible. Experts reckon the PF office could instead put the onus of paying the tax on employees filing their returns. 
Source : Economic Times