Need of Revisional Authorities under Tax laws

There is an utmost importance of Revisional authorities under Tax laws (both under Income Tax Law and GST Law) to safeguard and protect the interest of revenue as they act as a reviewer of the orders passed by the lower authorities which fall under their respective jurisdictions.

Under Income Tax Act, 1961 there exists a provision under section 263 and 264 where Commissioner of Income-tax can revise the orders passed by its subordinating authorities i.e. A.O. falling under its jurisdiction.

The main reason behind introducing this provision under Income Tax Act, 1961 was to prevent its subordinating authorities to take bribe from assesse by passing Assessment Orders which are prejudicial to the interest of revenue, therefore section 263 was introduced to give the powers to CIT to revise the assessment orders if found prejudicial to the interest of revenue. 

On the contrary, the situation may occur when A.O. may pass such an assessment order which is bad in the eyes of law i.e. prejudicial in the interest of the assesse, the said case may arise when assesse fails to fulfil the demand of A.O. i.e. refuse to give bribe and in return, A.O. passes an order which is unethical, unlawful and not in accordance with the law, therefore in such situation remedy is available to the aggrieved assesse to file an application with CIT u/s 264. CIT after reviewing the application and records available with him will accordingly pass or remand back the order and will assist the A.O. in passing correct order as per law.  

What happens is that A.O. prefers unethical ways like Adhoc additions, disallowance of genuine expenses on account of some or little discrepancies present in the evidences submitted during the assessment proceedings and thereby reject the evidences and pass the assessment order that to with Adhoc additions, but assesse has an option to file an application u/s 264 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 to Commissioner of Income Tax of its respected jurisdiction against the order passed by the concerned A.O. Afterwards, if Commissioner is of the view that A.O. has passed the order without application of mind or has passed the order intentionally without considering the facts and evidences produced during the assessment proceedings, then in that case Commissioner may sue moto or on application filed by assesse, remand back the order for revision as per his considerations and will & A.O. has to act accordingly as per the directions of Commissioner.  

AUTHOR'S OPINION CUM SUGGESTION

Aggrieved assessee should first prefer an appeal option which is required to be filed with the Commissioner of Income Tax ( Appeals ) in Form 35 within 30 days from the date of receipt of assessment order, but if assessee was not able to prefer appeal option or appeal filed by him was rejected, then in that case he should prefer revision option and accordingly file an application with CIT.

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