New Delhi: The income-tax department has notified the creation of a dispute resolution panel, which aims to shorten the time taken to resolve disputes between the department and tax payers on the extent of the latter’s tax liability.
The panel was set up in the wake of a promise in Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee’s July 2009 Budget to quicken the pace of resolving tax disputes as foreign investment is extremely sensitive to prolonged uncertainty in tax matters.
The notification was issued on 20 November.
“It is very critical because we have a huge amount of litigation,” Vijay Iyer, partner at consultancy Ernst and Young, said. The panel would have a window of up to nine months, from the day a tax assessment is completed and the draft given to the assessee, to issue directions. “Now it will depend on how well it is implemented,” Iyer said.