VCES & Sec 87 of FA, 1994 - An acerbic reaction
IN yesterday's DDT 2120, we carried a mail sent to us by a Netizen on VCES, 2013. And by afternoon, we received the following mail from an erudite professional-
“The interpretation done and fear espoused pertaining to VCES is not correct for the following reasons:
a. first there is no section 110 - the section being referred to is section 100.
b. Secondly assume an assessee makes a declaration of say Rs. 10 lacs - the scheme asks him to pay 50% before 31.12.2013 and rest 50% before 30.06.2014 and further if he fails to pay even by 30.06.2014 he further gets 6 months i.e. till 31.12.2014 to pay the declared dues but now with interest. Now if he still doesnt pay - what is the department supposed to do - sit and wait. The person has been given 18 months to pay the tax and he still doesnt - then in my view the government is justified in invoking section 87. There is no ambiguity in this regard. Please dont take everything that comes in your mail box as true and that whatever govt does is wrong. Atleast evaluate it .”
DDT responds - The capsule opened with a mention that it is a mail received from a Netizen. DDT tries to act as a sounding board to reflect the views of the netizens and only wishes that the Board becomes proactive and clarifies the innumerable doubts that the “potential” declarants have. Needless to mention, the subject is too complex that the ‘evaluation' by DDT cannot and will not obviously be the final word in the matter. And we need not necessarily agree with the views expressed by the Netizens.
And regarding your comment,
first there is no section 110 - the section being referred to is section 100.,
Thank you sir for pointing out that there is no section 110 and it should be Section 100, but unfortunately this is not correct - you are referring to the Finance Bill 2013, where this clause was mentioned as Section 100, but by the time it was enacted, it became Section 110. Kindly see the authentic version of the Finance Act 2013 - incidentally published by TIOL and perhaps we are the only website which has given the correct Finance Act 2013.
And by the way, we have not evaluated this mail too! We leave it to the netizens to decide.