The Finance Ministry of India on August 4,2020, reported that the Income Tax Department has reduced its Scrutiny on selected Income Tax Returns to 0.25 percent of the Total Income Tax returns (ITR) filed in the Assessment Year 2018-19 from 0.55 percent in the previous year 2017-18. The Income Tax Department is changing from just Enforcement of the Laws to Facilitating better tax payer Services. In continuation of the same the IT Department has drastically reduced the number of cases for Scrutinization. The official Data released by the Income Tax Department showed that the number of Income tax Scrutiny cases were 0.71 % in Assessment year 2015-16, 0.40 percent in the year 2016-17, 0.55 percent in the year 2017-18 and 0.25 percent in the year 2018-19. The scrutiny rate is the lowest in the past four assessment years. However, The Ministry did not give the exact number of cases picked up for Scrutiny during these Years.
The city of Delhi which has over 16 Million Pan Card Holders, the rate of Scrutiny was reduced from 1.12% in 2015-16 where 2.5 million returns were filed. It has further reduced to 0.52% in 2018-19 assessment year when 3.2 million IT returns were filed.
The State wise data of the Income Tax Department showed while the percentage of Income Tax Scrutiny has come down, the number of Income tax returns filed during the year 2018-19 has increased compared to the year 2017-18. In Maharashtra, the number of PAN Card Holders is over 66.6 Million, and the number of cases selected for scrutiny reduced to 0.38% of 9.7 million in the Assessment year 2018-19 whereas it was 0.98% of 7.48 Million cases in 2015-16 Assessment Year.
Scrutiny cases in Odisha reduced to 0.12 percent in the year 2018-19 from 0.37 percent in the year before and for Punjab, the scrutiny cases came down from 0.40 percent to 0.14 percent in the year 2018-19. In West Bengal State, 38.93 lakh Income Tax Returns were filed in the year 2018-29, while the cases picked up for scrutiny was 0.25 percent, whereas, in the previous year 2017-18, 0.59 percent cases out 33.64 lakh filed were scrutinized.
