Breather for tax payer; AIS data not for tax calculation: CBDT

Amid concerns raised by some tax professionals on social media over alleged discrepancies related to stock sale and purchase data of assessees on newly-introduced Annual Information System (AIS), the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has said that AIS data is not being used for suo moto tax liability calculation as of now.

Several professionals have pointed out that AIS is showing pledged shares as sale of shares, an entry which will enhance tax liability. They have also said that data on sale/purchase of shares is showing the day’s closing prices rather than prices at which the sale/purchase was executed.

Clarifying the points, a top official from CBDT told Fortune India, “The equity data being reflected in AIS is based on inputs from depositories.”

“The data is just there to make the tax payer aware about transactions that have been reported to the tax department by depositories and other third parties. We are not taking those transactions into account for pre-filling income tax return forms or calculating capital gains, etc, as of now, as it is a third party data,” the official added. “No tax liability computation will be done based on the data,” the official pointed out.

The official also said that AIS gives an option in the drop-down menu for raising a red flag on data sourced from third parties.

The CBDT has rolled out AIS to capture information related to interest, dividend, securities transactions, mutual fund transactions and foreign remittances, among others, for 360-degree profiling of tax payers to plug evasion. It will replace Form 26AS. The data is collected from agencies like depositories, property registrars and asset management companies.

As the return deadline nears, over three crore assessees had filed income tax returns on the new e-filing portal as on December 3. Almost four lakh returns are being filed every day; the number is growing with each passing day.