By Hardayal Singh, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Rtd.)
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Ombudsman Orders
In the past one year, the Ombudsman has been approached by a
few taxpayers, who have faced difficulties with the Income-tax Department. Some
excellent orders have been passed by the Ombudsman, providing much-needed relief
to harassed taxpayers. Many taxpayers are not aware of the types of relief that
the Ombudsman can provide. To encourage more taxpayers to take the benefit of
the services of the office of the Ombudsman for similar problems faced by them,
we intend to reproduce some orders passed by the Ombudsman. We reproduce one
such order below, in which the assessee received its refund pursuant to such
order. We also request readers to share their experience with other readers, by
sending in orders that may have been passed by the Ombudsman in their own or
their client’s cases, for reproduction in this column. — Editor
Government of India
Office of the Ombudsman
Income-tax Department,
11th floor, Mittal Tower,
‘B’ Wing, Nariman Point, Mumbai-21.
Ref. No. Ombudsman/431/2007-08
Name & address of the assessee : ABC (I) Pvt. Ltd.
PAN No. : xxxxxx
A.Y. : 2006-07
Date of order : 12th March, 2008
Order under Clause 12 of the Income Tax Ombudsman Guidelines, 2006 :
1. The assessee, an advertising agency submitted on 8-2-2008
a grievance petition to the Ombudsman in which it indicated that although it had
claimed a refund of Rs.5,69,71,367 in its return of income for the A.Y. 2006-07,
it had not been granted the same so far. Enquiries made by them with the
Income-tax department revealed that the credit appearing in the department’s
records was only around Rs.1 crore.
2. Subsequently, a report furnished by the Chief Commissioner
of Income-tax, Mumbai-IV revealed that whereas the TDS claimed by the assessee
was to the tune of Rs.9.11 crores, this figure of TDS, according to the data
supplied to the Department by NSDL, was only Rs.2.37 crores. Only TDS entries of
Rs.66 lacs could be matched.
3. There appears to be some communication gap between the
assessee and the Department. The Department claims that instead of reconciling
the mismatch report and submitting only TDS Certificates in respect of entries
which did not match with the data provided by NSDL to the Department, the
assessee submitted four volumes of all its original TDS certificates. The task
of reconciliation was left to the Department. The Department has been unable to
perform this task so far to the satisfaction of the assessee. The assessee, on
the hand, claims that it has been extending full co-operation to the Department.
4. There is obviously considerable complexity involved in the
case for the reason that the assessee’s claim for refund is based on 757 TDS
Certificates, only a small proportion of which are reflected in the computerised
records of the Department.
5. To sort out these matters, a hearing was fixed on
10-3-2008 at 12.30 p.m. Shri . . . . . . . . . . . . ., C.A. and Shri
. . . . . . . . . . . . . Vice-President (Finance) attended on behalf of the
assessee and Shri . . . . . . . . . . . . ., Addl. CIT Rg. 6(3) and Shri
. . . . . . . . . . . . ., ACIT 6(3) attended on behalf of the Department.
Before me, both the Department as well as the assessee agreed as follows :
(i) The Department would ensure the settlement of the
assessee’s refund claim by 25-3-2008, as more than one and half years have
passed since the return was filed;
(ii) The assessee will extend full co-operation to the AO
in the reconciliation of mis-matched items;
(iii) The Department will be at liberty in accordance with
the law to make such verification as it deems necessary to ascertain the
correctness of the TDS claims, even after the issue of the pending refund;
(iv) Such verification however, if detailed, will not hold
up the assessee’s refund, and
(v) If directed, the assessee will comply with the
requirements of filing an Indemnity Bond and fulfilling all other formalities
in accordance with the extant procedures of the Department.
(Hardayal Singh)
Income Tax Ombudsman,
Mumbai
