New Delhi: The focus of Union Budget 2022-23 has been to provide maximum relief to the taxpayers by making significant changes in the income tax processes, said JB Mohapatra, Chairperson, CBDT, Ministry of Finance, while addressing FICCI’s virtual post budget interactive session. He emphasised that the endeavour is to eliminate irritants in the processes to curb inefficiencies, ensure hassle free and ease interaction between the taxpayers and tax department.
He further stated that the provisions relating to litigation management to avoid repetitive appeals, clarification on various interpretation issues to plug long prone litigation between taxpayers and the tax department, and new provisions inserted to ease faceless assessment process based on last year experience are some of the key changes announced in the Finance Bill, 2022.
Vivek Johri, Chairperson, CBIC, said that the unprecedented simplification of customs tariff structure, elimination of 500 exemption entries from the customs tariff, rate rationalization under customs for supporting Make in India, MSMEs and exports, amendment in the Customs Act to plug operational gaps to align Customs provisions in line with the Supreme Court judgement in the case of Canon India, recognizing publishing of data declared in bill of entry/shipping bill as an offence, aligning tariff in line with HS 2022, digitisation of process relating to import of goods at concessional rate of customs duty are some of the key indirect tax amendments directed towards bringing simplification.
Sanjiv Mehta, President, FICCI, said that this budget has done the fine balancing act by ensuring consistency in policy, without triggering tax rates and simultaneously laying out a comprehensive package for relief, recovery, and reforms.
“The thrust of the tax proposals has been to continue with the policy of stable, predictable and trustworthy tax regime. The Budget is forward-looking and growth-oriented that strengthens the drivers of long-term development. It builds on last year’s budget and scores high on several counts – consistency, capex led growth, transparency in numbers, energising many of the stressed sectors and continues the focus on simplifying the taxation policy,” he added. /BI/