Ad-hoc procedure for writing of arrears of Rs. 500 and below. - Income Tax - 929/CBDT

INSTRUCTION NO. 929/CBDT Dated :March 4, 1976 Reference is invited to Instruction no. 267 dated 30-1-1971* issued from file No. 385/46/70-IT(B) under which an ad-hoc procedure for writing of arrears of Rs. 500 and below was prescribed in cases where the address of the assessee and his assessment/recovery records had not been available for 10 years. The Board have been receiving suggestions from some Commissioners of Income-tax to the effect that the monetary limit fixed was rather low and required to be increased. 2. The matter has been examined by the Board at length. In supersession of the existing Instruction No. 267 dated 30-1-1971 referred to above, it has been decided, with the approval of the Central Government, that the ad-hoc procedure for write-off should cover demands upto Rs. 2,000 instead of Rs. 500 outstanding against an assessee. It has also been decided to cover, under the ad-hoc procedure, arrears which have been outstanding for non-availability of assessment records/detailed addresses of the assessees for more than 5 years immediately preceding the financial year during which they are to be written off. At present, such period is 10 years. The following conditions should, however, be satisfied before this type of demands are written off by the IACs./ITOs. within their existing powers of write-off:-(i) The I.T.O should certify that the assessment records of the assessee have not been traceable for the last 5 years preceding the financial year in which the demand is to be written off. The I.A.C. should certify that the responsibility for the loss of records cannot be fixed; (ii) The demand has been outstanding for at least 5 years preceding the financial year in which the same is to be written off and that there has been no recovery during the said 5 years; (iii) In case the demand outstanding is Rs. 500 or less in each case, the certificate of irrecoverability from the T.R.O need not be obtained. For demands over Rs. 500 however, the T.R.O. should certify that either no recovery certificate has been pending with him or that he has not been able to recover anything during the said 5 years; and (iv) The address of the assessee has not been available for the said 5 years in any records available with the I.T.O. or the T.R.O. Even where the last address is available, the assessee has not been available at that address during the last 5 years. 3. In order to enable the Board to watch the progress of arrears written off under the ad-hoc procedure, you are requested to send a quarterly statement to the Director of Inspection (Research Statistics) in the proforma enclosed, along with the quarterly statement of demand collection and arrears. The first statement should be for the quarter ending 30th June, 1976. 4. For the implementation of the procedure set out above, you are requested to issue necessary instructions to all the IACs./ITOs. in your charge so that the infructuous arrears involved in such cases are written off, as soon as possible and are not unnecessarily carried over year after year in the D CRs. For this purpose, it should be ensured that all uncollected demands of Rs. 2,000 and below raised before 1-4-1971 are reviewed urgently to arrive at the total figure of arrears as on 1-4-1976 that can be written off under this ad-hoc procedure.