Genuineness of finance leases: assessing officers must verify agreements, asset existence and accounting, and investigate potential fraud.
Assessing Officers must scrutinise finance lease agreements and supporting documents to establish genuineness of transaction and asset ownership, examine contractual indicia (commencement date, warranties, lessee liabilities, tax and transfer obligations, rent variation, end-of-lease transfer/purchase option), verify physical existence and compliance through field enquiries, check accounting of lease rentals, investigate return of purchase payments to lessor or associates, test sale-and-leaseback prices and refer valuation if needed, and consider Explanation 4A to section 43(1); false documents may lead to disallowance of depreciation and prosecution.

PAN quoting requirement: taxpayers and departmental communications must display new-series PAN to enable computerized tax processing.
Mandate to quote Permanent Account Number (PAN) under the new series to support Income Tax Department computerization: taxpayers must quote PAN on challans, returns and correspondence; the Department must display PAN on its orders, challans and refunds; and a red-ink rubber stamp stating "Please obtain and quote PAN" is to be affixed on communications, with officers directed to ensure strict compliance.

Certificate for tax deducted at source remains obligatory even when the payer bears the tax, requiring issuance to the payee.
Where a payer bears the tax and pays the payee net of tax, the payer must gross up the income for deduction purposes, deduct tax, and is legally obliged to furnish the prescribed certificate of tax deducted at source to the payee within the prescribed time so the payee can claim credit; bearing the tax under an agreement does not absolve the payer of the duty to issue the certificate.

Genuine hardship under section 273A(4) must exist at application and at order for penalty relief.
The existence of genuine hardship under section 273A(4) must be demonstrated at the time the assessee makes the application and must continue to exist at the time the Commissioner passes an order; relief also requires that the assessee has cooperated in related inquiries and that the Commissioner records reasons for any reduction, waiver, stay or compounding of penalties or recovery proceedings.

Waiver of interest: claims based on press notes are not sustainable; waivers must follow Board orders' parameters.
Waiver of interest based on the Press Note of 21-5-1996 is not sustainable because the Press Note merely gave broad advance publicity and does not override the Board's final order; claims for waiver must be considered only within the parameters of the Board's order dated 23-5-1996 read with the subsequent order, and waivers are to be granted by the Chief Commissioner of Income-tax and the Director General of Income-tax in accordance with those criteria.

Revised telex proforma required for search and seizure reports; telex submissions must use the newly updated form.
Telex reports on search and seizure must be sent using the newly revised proforma, which incorporates a new column no. 4 after column no. 3; all future telex submissions are to adopt this updated layout without exception.

Section 80G deduction allowed when employer/DDO issues certificate for employee donations to national or relief funds.
Employees donating to the Prime Minister's, Chief Minister's or Lieutenant Governor's Relief Funds are eligible for deduction under section 80G; where contributions are made as consolidated payments via employers, a certificate issued by the employer or DDO will be accepted as proof for claiming the deduction.

Tax deduction at source from salaries: prescribed computation, declarations and compliance obligations for employers and payors.
Employers must deduct tax at source on estimated annual salary income for 1999-2000 by including taxable perquisites, excluding prescribed exemptions, allowing statutory deductions and Chapter VIA investments/payments within limits, applying prescribed slab-based rates and adding a ten per cent surcharge where applicable. Employers may rely on employee declarations and prescribed forms to compute reliefs; they must issue Form 16, quote TAN, file annual TDS returns, use correct challans, and remit deductions within prescribed timeframes. Penalties, interest and prosecution provisions apply for failures to deduct, remit or comply.

Tax audit compliance: linking audit reports to returns enables targeted assessments and initiation of penalties for non filing or late filing.
Assessing Officers must identify returns defective for non compliance with the tax audit obligation under section 44AB, mark returns lacking timely audit reports, link separately filed audit reports to returns, examine reports for credible information to select cases for assessment under section 143(3), and maintain a Control Register to track audit mandated cases, late or non filings, and penalty proceedings under section 271B, with quarterly reporting in Annexure B and supervisory monitoring of compliance.

Retrospective amendment to proviso to section 36(1)(vii) requires review of past assessments and remedial action.
Amendment to the proviso to section 36(1)(vii) is retrospective from 1 April 1992 and applies to entities covered by clause (viia), including public financial institutions, state financial corporations and state industrial investment corporations, restricting deductions for bad debts by reference to excess credit balances in the provision for bad and doubtful debts. Assessing Officers must review assessments for AY 1992-93 and subsequent years where the amended proviso was not applied and take remedial action as required by law.

Exemption for infrastructure investment income applies to net income, requires yearly approval and TDS may still apply.
Exemption under section 10(23G) covers dividend, interest and long term capital gains from investments in infrastructure enterprises and applies to the net income as computed under the Income tax Act, not gross receipts. Approval under clause (23G) is required for each assessment year during repayment of long term finance for interest to be exempt in the hands of the infrastructure capital company or fund. Tax must be deducted at source on interest payments, though recipients may seek a lower/non deduction certificate from the assessing officer.

Appeal disposal targets require appellate commissioners to meet set monthly averages to reduce pendency and allow regional redistribution.
Chief Commissioners of Income-tax and Directors General of Income Tax must ensure Commissioners of Income-tax (Appeals) dispose of an average specified number of appeals per month in their charges; regional heads may fix individual targets according to case nature, redistribute work to equalise pendency, continue sending reports in the prescribed format to Director (RSP&PR), and note that this instruction supersedes all prior instructions on the subject.

Income tax amendments widen sectoral incentives and recast reorganisations, withholding and return processing obligations.
The Finance Act, 1999 overhauls direct tax law by setting rates and TDS/TCS rules for 1999-2000, creating and revising targeted exemptions and incentives (tax holidays, export and infrastructure benefits, venture capital and commodity board exemptions, Gold Deposit Bonds), defining tax treatment of stock options, insurance compensation, buy backs, slump sales, demergers and amalgamations, and streamlining administration through return processing reform, appellate time limits, computerised TCS returns and revised compliance obligations.

Selection for scrutiny under Section 143(3) suspended in salary wards; focus shifted to refunds and employer TDS checks.
Selection for assessment under Section 143(3) is suspended in salary wards/circles/special ranges in Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai for the current year to concentrate on pending refund disposal and scrutiny of employer TDS returns, with exceptions for search and seizure, surveys under section 133A, reassessments under section 147, set-aside or court-mandated cases, and matters flagged by vigilance or investigative agencies; Central charges remain unaffected and each return there continues to be selected for Section 143(3) assessment.

Timely remedial action for revenue audit objections required, with complete proforma reports and appropriate statutory reassessment where needed.
Where Revenue Audit or C&AG draft para objections are accepted by Commissioners, remedial action must be completed immediately and proforma reports in Part 'A' and 'B' must be fully and correctly completed and sent to the Board within the prescribed timeline, with dates of receipt and dispatch recorded; action should be taken under section 147 or 263 where detailed examination is required and section 154 used only for mistakes apparent from record.

Central Government approval requirement for research-related tax deductions now governs filing, transfer, and validation processes.
Amendment requires Central Government to grant approvals for research-related deductions formerly given by the prescribed authority; fresh applications for later assessment years must be filed in Form 3CF with the Central Government, and pending applications held by DGIT(E) as of the notification date for those later years are transferred to the Central Government. The DGIT(E) with the Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research remains the authority for earlier assessment years, and approvals already granted before notification for later years remain valid.

Assessment of political parties: all returns to be examined under section 143(3), standardising scrutiny procedure across cases.
The Board directs that all assessments of political parties, whether returns are voluntary or in response to notice, shall be made under section 143(3) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, applying to pending returns for which a statutory notice under section 143(2) can now be issued and to returns received in future.

Refund procedure: require bank advice, written intimation before adjustment, regional approval ceilings and interest entitlement.
Require enclosure of bank advice with refund vouchers and prompt transmission to banks; CCITs to use RBI returns and inspections must comment on timeliness and address accuracy. Written intimation is mandatory before adjusting refunds against demands. CCIT/DGIT shall set regional monetary ceilings for prior superior approval of refunds, allowing separate ceilings for corporate and non corporate cases. Where superior approval is needed, the assessing officer must calculate and grant interest up to the date the voucher is signed after approval without separate sanction.

Prompt compliance with audit references required to ensure timely responses and avoid departmental embarrassment and criticism.
Field formations must promptly furnish comments, data and information requested by the Directorate of Income Tax (Audit) for time bound responses to external audit and parliamentary oversight bodies; Chief Commissioners and Directors General must ensure regional offices prioritise such references, provide material in the appropriate form and transmit replies expeditiously to avoid departmental embarrassment and adverse criticism.

Deduction under section 80G: employer/DDO certificates permit employee claims for consolidated workplace donations to defence and forces funds.
Employees who donate to the National Defence Fund or specified Armed Forces welfare funds through consolidated employer remittances remain eligible for deduction under section 80G, provided the employer/DDO issues a certificate evidencing the individual employee's contribution; such employer/DDO certificates will be accepted where separate recipient certificates cannot be issued due to consolidated donations.