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Income-Tax
Assessment Orders - No Secret Now!
In
a recent judgment, the Central Information Commission ("CIC"),
the highest appellate authority under the Right to Information
Act, 2005 ("RTIA"), on March 30, 2006 held that a person
has a right to seek any tax payer's assessment order so long as
the order is not exempt under the RTIA. This implies that the
assessment orders of any person, which the tax authorities so
far used to hold as 'private and confidential', will now be accessible
to the public. The CIC has, however, denied access to a person's
income tax returns treating them as confidential documents.
An
assessment order is a document containing basic details of a tax
payer's income and the tax due on it. In the CIC's view, there
is no basis for not disclosing assessment orders since the assessment
is an action by a public authority and that every such action
taken by such public authority is in the interest of the public
and that the public authority must adopt an open and transparent
process of evaluation norms and procedures for the assessment
of tax liabilities.
It
is interesting to note that though second level income tax appellate
orders are public information, first level appellate orders are
not and are not specifically covered in CIC's order.
In
principle this is a move in the right direction, as it would curtail
corruption and would lead to more transparency. However, there
is a possibility that the decision of the CIC may be challenged
on the grounds of privacy.
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You
can direct your queries or comments to the authors
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Source:
The
Economic Times, dated April 18, 2006
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