Lok Sabha panel backs taxpayer-friendly GAAR tweaks in Income Tax Bill review

Mint

3 days ago

New Delhi: A Lok Sabha panel reviewing the Income Tax Bill, 2025 is set to propose a more taxpayer-friendly approach to anti-avoidance provisions aimed at curbing aggressive tax planning.
The government is likely to accept most of the Select Committee's 285 recommendations and plans to reintroduce a revised legislation in the monsoon session of Parliament starting Monday, according to three persons aware of the working of the panel and the thinking in the government.
The Income Tax Bill, 2025, once approved by Parliament and assented to by the President, will become a law, replacing the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The committee, led by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha member Baijayant Panda, is set to recommend that India's General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) that disallow transactions mainly designed to avoid tax, should be assessed with regard to the specific context of each case.
That would require restoring certain wordings in the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961 as they exist today, but were dropped as part of the effort to simplify the text in the draft bill, said one of the three persons cited earlier, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A Select Committee is an ad hoc or temporary parliamentary panel formed with the specific purpose of examining a particular bill. It is dissolved after the task is achieved.
The idea is to balance strong enforcement of the anti-evasion provisions with tax payer protection. The existing Section 98 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 stipulates that if a transaction is found to be designed for tax avoidance, then the consequences including denial of tax benefit will be decided in an appropriate manner 'in the circumstances of the case.'
The committee is set to recommend restoring these words referring to the specific circumstance of the case in the final form of the Bill that the government will introduce in Parliament, as these words act as a safeguard to ensure GAAR is reasonable and procedurally fair, the person added.
The select committee endorsed the revised provision in the Bill with the modification that these words should be reinstated explicitly. This is expected to ensure a balance between deterrence against tax avoidance and taxpayer protection, the person said.
Experts pointed out that this phrase makes sure that an assessment or conclusion made in the case of one transaction of a company is not blindly applied to another transaction of the same company or to a similar transaction by another company without looking into the specific circumstances of those transactions.
'The phrase 'in the circumstances of the case' is crucial because it ensures that tax authorities take into account the specific facts of each arrangement before applying harsh consequences and declaring any arrangement impermissible under GAAR. Although the likely intent to remove the phrase from draft Income Tax Bill 2025 was to simplify the language of provision, but absence of this phrase would have allowed tax officers to deny tax benefits in a broad and mechanical manner—even in genuine commercial transactions,' said Amit Maheshwari, tax partner, AKM Global, a tax and consulting firm.
Experts believe dropping the phrase could lead to uncertainty and litigation and by recommending its reinstatement, the Select Committee has rightly moved to protect taxpayers from one-size-fits-all treatment and uphold fairness in tax system.
The committee is tentatively scheduled to submit its report to the Lok Sabha on Monday. The finance ministry is preparing to rework the Bill based on the committee's report with a high degree of urgency in order to get the Bill passed in the current session to implement the new income tax law from 1 April, 2026. The ministry will seek the cabinet approval once the select committee gives its report next week, said the second person.
The Select Committee's suggested changes to the Income Tax Bill, 2025 mainly address drafting anomalies as compared to language of the existing law and include updates from the Finance Act 2025, said Sameer Gupta, EY India tax leader, citing media reports.
'If there are any substantive changes, it will need to be evaluated after the (Select Committee's) Report and the amended Bill are tabled before the Parliament," Gupta added.
According to Gupta, suggestions for more substantive reforms include further simplification and rationalisation of residency rules, TDS/TCS provisions, deductibility of certain expenses which are currently prone to litigation, etc.
"If they are not addressed in the amended Bill, they will need to be taken up as part of subsequent Budget exercise,' said Gupta.