BOMDILA, Jun 11: The income tax (IT) department on Tuesday conducted an outreach programme here in West Kameng district for taxpayers, IT practitioners and DDOs.
Giving an overview of the income tax policy of the country since 1860, IT Principal Commissioner (Guwahati-1) Shishir Kr Jha said the tribal communities should not take their tax exemption for granted.
“It is for them to ensure that the non-locals – those who run businesses or are into contract works in the name of locals – file regular returns with the department,” Jha said.
“If we don’t protect tax exemption we have, we may soon be paying taxes,” he said.
Additional IT Commissioner (Tezpur Range) Doly Loyi spoke about the endeavours of the department to reach out to the people to make return filings easy and user-friendly.
Citing various reasons as to why one needs to file IT returns, he said the tribals “should know the legalities and the reasons behind the exemption granted, and play their part in ascertaining that return filings are made regularly by their non-local partners, as the Benami Act is equally applicable to tribals.”
West Kameng DC Sonal Swaroop opined that though there has been IT exemption in the Northeast, there are certain issues which the taxpayers are not well acquainted with.
“Outreach programmes and interactive sessions would go a long way in addressing the problem and making people aware of the importance of filing returns,” she said. (DIPRO)
