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The Income-tax Act, 1961 | |
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Parliament of India | |
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Citation | Act 43 of 1961 |
Enacted by | Parliament of India |
Commenced | 1 April 1962 |
Status: In force |
The Income Tax Act, 1961 is the charging statute of income tax in India. It provides for the levy, administration, collection, and recovery of income tax. The Government of India brought a draft statute called the Direct Taxes Code intended to replace the Income Tax Act, 1961 and the Wealth Tax Act, 1957. The bill, however, was later scrapped. [1]
The Government of India presents the finance bill (budget) every year in the month of February. The finance budget brings various amendments in the Income Tax Act, 1961 including tax slabs rates. [2] The amendments are generally applicable to the following financial year beginning from 1 April unless otherwise specified. Such amendments become part of the Income Tax Act after receiving approval of the President of India.
The partial budget presented for a non-full financial year, typically during a General Election year in India, is called a "Vote on Account." It is introduced to ensure the continuation of essential government expenditures required for the smooth functioning of the country. A full-fledged budget is presented once a new government is formed.
The scope of total income is contingent on the category of the taxpayer and their residential status in India. For example, a person resident in India is liable to pay income tax in India on his total world income. On the other hand, a person non-resident in India is liable to pay tax in India only on his Indian income. Under the Income Tax Act, there are five heads of income: salary, house property, business or profession, capital gains, and other sources. Total income consists of income computed under these heads. The tax on total income is computed as per the tax rates specified for the year during which the income is earned.
The primary objectives of the Income Tax Act 1961 are:
The Union Government established a panel, led by Arbind Modi, to overhaul and simplify the income tax laws. On 22 November 2017, the government formed a task force to draft a new direct tax law, replacing the existing Income Tax Act, which has been in effect since 1961. Arbind Modi, a member of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), will lead the six-member panel, with Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian serving as a permanent special invitee. [4]
The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock.
A flat tax is a tax with a single rate on the taxable amount, after accounting for any deductions or exemptions from the tax base. It is not necessarily a fully proportional tax. Implementations are often progressive due to exemptions, or regressive in case of a maximum taxable amount. There are various tax systems that are labeled "flat tax" even though they are significantly different. The defining characteristic is the existence of only one tax rate other than zero, as opposed to multiple non-zero rates that vary depending on the amount subject to taxation.
A dividend tax is a tax imposed by a jurisdiction on dividends paid by a corporation to its shareholders (stockholders). The primary tax liability is that of the shareholder, though a tax obligation may also be imposed on the corporation in the form of a withholding tax. In some cases the withholding tax may be the extent of the tax liability in relation to the dividend. A dividend tax is in addition to any tax imposed directly on the corporation on its profits. Some jurisdictions do not tax dividends.
Although the actual definitions vary between jurisdictions, in general, a direct tax is a tax imposed upon a person or property as distinct from a tax imposed upon a transaction, which is described as an indirect tax. There is a distinction between direct and indirect taxes depending on whether the tax payer is the actual taxpayer or if the amount of tax is supported by a third party, usually a client. The term may be used in economic and political analyses, and may have legal implications in some jurisdictions. In the United States of America, the term has special constitutional significance because of two provisions in the U.S. Constitution that any direct taxes imposed by the national government be apportioned among the states on the basis of population. It is also significant in the European Union, where direct taxation remains the sole responsibility of member states.
PAYGO is the practice of financing expenditures with funds that are currently available rather than borrowed.
In France, taxation is determined by the yearly budget vote by the French Parliament, which determines which kinds of taxes can be levied and which rates can be applied.
Income tax in India is governed by Entry 82 of the Union List of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India, empowering the central government to tax non-agricultural income; agricultural income is defined in Section 10(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Income-tax law consists of the 1961 act, Income Tax Rules 1962, Notifications and Circulars issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), annual Finance Acts, and judicial pronouncements by the Supreme and high courts.
Tax on cash withdrawal is a form of advance taxation and is a strategy to keep tax evasion in check. This mode of tax collection is also called the presumptive tax regime. Globally, 3 countries are known to consider this approach namely, Pakistan, India and Greece.
Tax deduction at source (TDS) is an Indian withholding tax that is a means of collecting tax on income, dividends, or asset sales by requiring the payer to deduct tax due before paying the balance to the payee.
Taxes in India are levied by the Central Government and the State Governments by virtue of powers conferred to them from the Constitution of India. Some minor taxes are also levied by the local authorities such as the Municipality.
The history of taxation in the United States begins with the colonial protest against British taxation policy in the 1760s, leading to the American Revolution. The independent nation collected taxes on imports ("tariffs"), whiskey, and on glass windows. States and localities collected poll taxes on voters and property taxes on land and commercial buildings. In addition, there were the state and federal excise taxes. State and federal inheritance taxes began after 1900, while the states began collecting sales taxes in the 1930s. The United States imposed income taxes briefly during the Civil War and the 1890s. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was not fully ratified by all states, thus making it an illegal tax.
Nand Kishore Singh is an Indian politician, economist and former Indian Administrative Service officer. He is a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since March 2014 after having served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha (2008-2014) from Bihar for the Janata Dal (United). He has been a senior bureaucrat, Member of the Planning Commission and handled assignments of Union Expenditure and Revenue Secretary. He was also Officer on Special Duty to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In Canada, the federal government makes equalization payments to provincial governments of lesser fiscal capacity so that "reasonably comparable" levels of public services can be provided at similar levels of taxation. Equalization payments are entrenched in the Constitution Act of 1982, subsection 36(2).
The history of taxation in the United Kingdom includes the history of all collections by governments under law, in money or in kind, including collections by monarchs and lesser feudal lords, levied on persons or property subject to the government, with the primary purpose of raising revenue.
Fiscal policy are "measures employed by governments to stabilize the economy, specifically by manipulating the levels and allocations of taxes and government expenditures". In the Philippines, this is characterized by continuous and increasing levels of debt and budget deficits, though there were improvements in the last few years of the first decade of the 21st century.
The Wealth Tax Act, 1957 was an Act of the Parliament of India that provides for the levying of wealth tax on an individual, Hindu Undivided Family or company. The wealth tax was levied on the net wealth owned by a person on a valuation date, i.e., 31 March of every year. The Act applies to the whole of India. The application of the Act has been discontinued since 1 April 2016.
The Income Tax Department is a government agency undertaking direct tax collection of the government of the Republic of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance. The Income Tax Department is headed by the apex body Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The main responsibility of the Income Tax Department is to enforce various direct tax laws, most important among these being the Income-tax Act, 1961, to collect revenue for the government of India. It also enforces other economic laws such as the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, and the Black Money Act, 2015.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a successor to VAT used in India on the supply of goods and service. Both VAT and GST have the same taxation slabs. It is a comprehensive, multistage, destination-based tax: comprehensive because it has subsumed almost all the indirect taxes except a few state taxes. Multi-staged as it is, the GST is imposed at every step in the production process, but is meant to be refunded to all parties in the various stages of production other than the final consumer and as a destination-based tax, it is collected from point of consumption and not point of origin like previous taxes.
The 2017 Union Budget of India is the
The 2020 Union Budget of India was presented by the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman on 1 February 2020, as her second budget. This is the second budget of Narendra Modi-led NDA government's second term. The Economic Survey for 2019–2020 was released on 31 January 2020, a day before the budget. Before the budget speech the report of the 15th Finance Commission was tabled by the Finance Minister.