Friday, June 17, 2011

[HumJanenge] I-T Dept to provide political parties' tax return details

I-T Dept to provide political parties' tax return details

                                                                                                                            Jun 17,  1:16 PM

The Income Tax Department has decided to provide full details of tax returns of political parties under the RTI Act after the Central Information Commission (CIC) issued it directives in this regard. The department has taken the step to bring in transparency in the funding of both big and small parties as the information will now be in public domain. According to the official sources, earlier IT department used to restrict such information, citing the section of the Income Tax Act, which allowed denial of such information.

Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi had earlier expressed concerns over the funding of such political parties and had asked the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to scrutinize their accounts.

With the new development, general public will now be able to obtain the details of income, donations and expenditure by all the political parties, which file their income tax returns.

The CIC, in an order in 2008, had asked the I-T department to allow the disclosure of such information.

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