A parliamentary panel has pushed the government for greater scrutiny and devising of specific codes for assessment of agricultural incomes to plug evasion of taxes. The panel has flagged that more than 21 lakh tax payers in their returns for the assessment year (AY) 2020-21 claimed agricultural income and of these, nearly 60,000 reported agricultural income exceeding Rs 10 lakh. The committee has expressed concern over the follow-up action by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to assess and verify these claims. This was after the CBDT chairman, in his deposition, informed the Public Accounts Committee or PAC that of the 59,707 returns of more than Rs 10 lakh among total of 21,55,368 cases, only 3,379 cases were chosen for assessment and scrutiny.
[2]