CA’S DETAILS ON TAX FORM TO ENSURE CLIENTS ARE NOT DUPED

NEW DELHI: Financial consultants, including chartered accountants (CAs), will have to provide their names and registration numbers while filing their clients’ income tax declaration from next year, a move aimed at ensuring ethical practices and better compliance.

The government will make changesintheIncomeTaxReturn (ITR) forms to include such information, Rani Singh Nair, chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, told HT on Friday. This will help crack down on fake consultants and save genuine tax payers from trouble, she said.

However, the onus of the ITR details will remain with the taxpayer. Fake tax professional will be called out and reported to the relevant regulatory body.

India has 7.4 crore-odd tax-payers. A large number of salaried individuals and businessmen take the help of tax lawyers or chartered accountants who charge anything between Rs500 to Rs5,000 for ITR filings. “Grievances have been received from taxpayers that some tax professionals are not carefully submitting the details in the ITR and sometime neither respond to notices/ communications issued by the department nor bring it to the knowledge of the tax payer,” Nair said.

Taxpayers will be able to verify the credentials of tax preparers from the department’s website or from the relevant institute where the complete details of the professionals are available.