Railway warns employees not to be lured by consultants offering fake Income Tax refunds

The Southern Central Railways has issued a letter regarding Wrong claims towards deductions/ exemptions from Income Tax and excess claims of refunds.

Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Vijayawada vide letter cited under reference addressed to DRM/BZA, has informed that Income Tax Department verifies the correctness of returns filed by the salaried employees, it was noticed that a large section of employees have been lured into claiming refund by filing false IT returns by exaggerating their claims of deductions/ exemptions, duly claiming refunds as high as 75-90 of the TDS deducted by the Accounts Department.

Field surveys also reveals that employees have taken refunds based on deductions/exemptions claimed which appear to be suspicious/incorrect and the same are under verification by the Income Tax Department.

Furthermore, the IT Department advised to verify the correctness of the claims of deductions/exemptions furnished in the returns for the assessment years 23-24, 22-23, and 21-22 and to file updated/revised returns to rectify the wrong claim, i.e., well before the Income Tax Department issued a notice to the employees.

Lastly, IT Department seriously mentioned that consequences of misreporting income by claiming wrongful deductions would entail interest on additional tax, penalty @200% of additional tax and in severe cases, prosecution and imprisonment of wrong doer will also be there.

The IT Department also urged staff not to be swayed by tax consultants/touts and not to claim incorrect deductions in future reports.

For Official Letter Download PDF Given Below: