Income tax issue discussed

Imphal: Tribal affairs and hills minister (TA&H) Valte chaired a meeting on the issues of income tax deduction at his office on Monday.

Letkhogin Haokip, ACS (TA&H), Paulunthang Vaiphei, ACS, link commissioner of GAD, officials from income tax department and TA&H attended the meeting.
In the meeting, the importance of tax payment and the difficulties and challenges related to obtaining tax exemption certificate with only one year validity were deliberated thoroughly.

Understanding the difficulties related to obtaining the tax exemption certificate for the tribal people of the state, especially those residing in the remote far-flung places in the hiills, the meeting decided to write a letter to the principal chief commissioners of income tax to prescribe a simplified procedure for claiming deduction of tax at known sources at lower/nil rate.

It is also decided the DDOs of department of government of Manipur and its PSUs shall intimate the exempted list of employees on the record of their service books to the income tax office, Imphal at the time of the assessment year.“The employees who needed exemption certificate under section 197(1) for different purpose can still apply through the department” the minister said.

All deserving schedule tribe government employees residing in specified areas areexempted from paying income tax under section 10(26) of Income Tax Act, 1961. But it has been made mandatory to produce a certificate issued under Section 197 of the IT Act to avail the exemption which creates problems to the ST employees