The Income Tax Department has said that application for settlement of pending tax cases will be accepted till Thursday. All such applications will be taken up by the Interim Board for Settlement as the Income-tax Settlement Commission has ceased to operate with effect from February 1.

This facility will be available for assessees who were eligible to file application for settlement on January 31, 2021 and where the relevant assessment proceedings  are pending as on the date of filing the application for settlement.

In order to dispose-off the pending settlement applications as on January 31, 2021, the government had constituted an Interim Board for Settlement. Following this, the Finance Ministry had received representations that a number of taxpayers were in advanced stages of filing their application for settlement as on February 1.

‘Relief for the eligible’

In order to provide relief to taxpayers who were eligible to file application as on January 31, but could not file the same due to cessation of the commission, the IT department earlier this month decided that applications for settlement can be filed by the taxpayers by September 30, before the Interim Board.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes on September 28, issued an order authorising Commissioner I-T to admit pending applications for settlement of cases. “The Board, in order to avoid genuine hardship to assessees authorises the Commissioner of Income-tax, posted as Secretary to the Settlement Commission prior to February 1, 2021, to admit an application for settlement on behalf of the Interim Board filed after January 31, 2021, and treat such applications as valid and process them as “pending applications”, the CBDT order said.

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