Section 139 of the Income tax Act provides for filing of return of income. Sub-section (1) of the section provides that every person being an individual, if his total income or the total income of any other person in respect of which he is assessable under this income tax Act during the previous year exceeded the maximum amount which is not chargeable to income-tax, shall, on or before the due date, furnish a return of his income.
In order to provide relief to senior citizens who are of the age of 75 year or above and to reduce compliance for them, it is proposed to insert a new section to provide a relaxation from filing the return of income, if the following conditions are satisfied:-
- The senior citizen is resident in India and of the age of 75 or more during the previous year;
- He has pension income and no other income. However, in addition to such pension income he may have also have interest income from the same bank in which he is receiving his pension income;
- This bank is a specified bank. The Government will be notifying a few banks, which are banking company, to be the specified bank; and
- He shall be required to furnish a declaration to the specified bank. The declaration shall be containing such particulars, in such form and verified in such manner, as may be prescribed.
Once the declaration is furnished, the specified bank would be required to compute the income of such senior citizen after giving effect to the deduction allowable under Chapter VI-A and rebate allowable under section 87A of the Act, for the relevant assessment year and deduct income tax on the basis of rates in force. Once this is done, there will not be any requirement of furnishing return of income by such senior citizen for this assessment year.
This amendment will take effect from 1st April, 2021.
