Armed with new draconian powers, tax personnel can now attach property of any person they raid for six months and that too without furnishing any substantive reason.
Similarly, tax authorities can also enter any premises, where charitable activity is going on, to survey it. They can extract any information from any person working there during the search and seizure operations. What is more, they can reopen cases where assessments have been made as far back as 10 years ago based on information found during the search operation.
The Finance Bill 2017, passed by the Lok Sabha yesterday, retains key changes proposed by finance minister Arun Jaitley in the Income Tax Act. Since the Finance Bill is being moved for consideration and passage in the Rajya Sabha as a Money Bill, the upper house cannot shoot it down.