A parliamentary committee examining the new Income Tax Bill gave some important suggestions on Monday. The committee has recommended to the Finance Ministry that people who file income tax returns after the deadline should also be allowed to claim TDS refund without paying a penalty. Also, anonymous donations received by trusts with both religious and charitable purposes should not be taxed.
Par Panel submits report on New Income Tax Bill
The committee was headed by BJP MP Baijayant Panda, who presented the committee’s report on the Income Tax Bill 2025 in the Lok Sabha.
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The Income Tax Bill 2025 will replace the old Income Tax Act of 1961. The committee has suggested some changes regarding this bill. In particular, attention has been given to non-profit organisations (NPOs) that do both religious and charitable work. The committee said that it is not right to bring the anonymous donations received by these organisations under the tax net.
The committee has opposed taxing the ‘receipts’ (the entire amount deposited) of NPOs. They believe that this violates the principle of ‘real income taxation’. Therefore, the committee has suggested that only the ‘net income’ (what remains after deducting expenses from the total income) of NPOs should be taxed.
The committee also said that there is still a lot of confusion about the anonymous donations received by religious and charitable trusts. These trusts often have a mixed or hybrid nature – that is, they do religious work as well as social service. In such a situation, giving an exemption only to religious trusts is not justified.
The report said that the purpose of the bill may be to simplify the text, but important things related to religious-charitable trusts have been left out in it, which can have a bad effect on a large social sector of the country.
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Notably, Clause 337 of the Income Tax Bill 2025 proposes to impose a direct 30% tax on anonymous donations received by all registered NPOs — with only trusts with purely religious purposes exempted from this.
This proposed change is a complete departure from the current Section 115BBC of the Income-tax Act,
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