Settlement of disputes under the 'Vivad Se Vishwas' scheme would be wholly electronic and will not involve any physical interaction with income
tax officers. Tax payers wanting to avail of the scheme only need to fill a form in their e-filing account on income tax website to apply for the scheme, said
revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey. He was speaking at a post Budget interaction among the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, senior government officials and industry representatives in Mumbai today.
Hinting that the income tax rates may come down slightly more in future years, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that in the long run, the government wants to move towards a 'no exemptions' tax regime with a 'bottomed out rate' so that tax net widens and the tax regime is simple.
At the same post budget interaction with the industry in Mumbai, Sitharaman, responding to a comment that the proposed new dual tax regime would create confusion, said that two options were given because "we did not want to be pre-deterministic."
Speaking at the same event, revenue secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey further said the government expected nearly 80% tax payers to shift to the new regime. He said that the government had run a simulation test on income tax data of previous financial year and found that close to 70% peopole will actually benefit by switching to the new regime. "About 11% taxpayers would be unaffected so our estimate is that 80% would shift to the new regime," he added.
He also pointed out that tax payers could use the calculator provided on the income tax department's e-filing website to compare tax payable under the existing and proposed new tax regime. He was responding to criticism in the media that the new proposed tax regime would not benefit many people.