Condonation of delay in refund claims: tax officers may admit late claims subject to specified statutory conditions and safeguards.
Authorisation empowers Income-tax Officers to admit and dispose of refund claims filed after the statutory time-limit by condoning delay under section 119(2)(b), subject to specified conditions: refund from tax deducted at source; returned income not a loss for carry forward; claim not supplementary; and income not assessable in another person. The order is effective from April 2, 1984 and must be circulated and publicised among officers.

Provisional assessments to avoid interest payments required; internal auditors must identify avoidable interest and report to CIT.
Provisional assessments must be made promptly when regular assessments will be delayed to prevent accrual of interest on delayed payments. Internal Audit Parties should examine cases where interest payments were avoidable through timely provisional assessment and report such instances to the concerned Commissioner of Income Tax as part of internal audit and compliance procedures.

Convertible debentures: only the convertible portion is exempt from deposit rules; unconverted portion becomes deposit after conversion period.
Only the convertible portion of partly convertible debentures is exempt from the deposit definition under rule 2(b)(x); any debenture portion that remains unconverted after the conversion period will acquire the character of a loan and fall within the definition of deposits unless it is secured by mortgage of immovable property as excluded by the rule.

Jurisdiction under section 132(9A): Assistant Directors of Inspection need not hand over seized records to assessing officers within fifteen days.
Section 132(9A) applies only where the authorised officer lacks jurisdiction over the person whose books or documents are seized, requiring handover to the jurisdictional Income tax Officer within fifteen days; an Assistant Director of Inspection is an authorised officer with all India jurisdiction for enquiries and therefore subsection (9A) does not apply to him, so he is not obliged under that provision to hand over seized books to the Income tax Officer.

Condonation of delay in refund claims now requires prior approval of the Commissioner before an Income-tax Officer entertains the claim.
Condonation of delay in filing refund claims has been authorized by Board order for specified cases, subject to fulfillment of the Board's conditions; an Income-tax Officer must obtain prior approval of the Commissioner before entertaining any such delayed refund claim and Commissioners must ensure officers are notified and conditions complied with.

Interest on protective assessments should be recalculated where original tax payment is treated as payment for the protective assessment.
Tax paid by a beneficiary on income protectively assessed in the representative should be treated as payment on the original payment date for the protective assessment; interest under section 220(2) must be recomputed accordingly. Recomputation requires the concerned persons to seek adjustment and the original payer to expressly forgo any claim to departmental interest. This position is limited to representative assessee/beneficiary and HUF/individual situations.

Per annum interpretation: full annual deduction under section 80J is allowed and not prorated for part-year operations.
The Board accepts High Court rulings that interpret per annum in relation to the deduction under section 80J to permit the full statutory annual deduction for the relevant previous year even where the new industrial undertaking, ship or hotel did not operate for the entire year, and directs that the deduction should not be reduced pro rata for the period during which the business was not carried on.

Relief from estate duty: statutory duty to allow gift tax relief is not barred by the rectification limitation period.
The Controller of Estate Duty has a statutory duty to allow relief under section 50A for gift-tax paid, and the rectification time-limit for estate duty assessments does not apply to that statutory obligation; relief for gift-tax cannot be denied solely because the limitation for rectification has expired.

Transfer of assessment records: standardized consent, direct dispatch and mandatory acknowledgement to prevent duplicate arrear entries.
Prescribes a standardized mechanism for transfer and acknowledgement of income-tax assessment records and arrear demand, requiring transferee ITO identification and consent routed via IAC/CIT as applicable, maintenance of a general folder and Register of Transfer of Records, use of revised Transfer Memo (ITNS 110) and separate Acknowledgement Form (ITNS 110A), direct dispatch of records from transferor to transferee with supervisory monitoring, prompt diarisation and acknowledgement in prescribed quadruplicate form, and special simplified procedure for bulk transfers accompanied by a duplicate proforma listing arrears and pending actions.

Communication of Commissioner approval and recorded reasons required; delays make continued retention invalid and must be promptly notified.
Section 132(8) requires that Commissioner approval for continued retention of seized books and the reasons recorded for that approval be communicated expeditiously to the person whose documents were seized; further retention without such communication is invalid. Assessing officers must complete scrutiny promptly; officers seeking retention must record cogent reasons before expiry, the Commissioner must record detailed reasons, the approval must be forwarded to the authorised officer before expiry, and the authorised officer must notify the assessee of approval and reasons without delay, and in any event within thirty days after expiry of the authorised period.

Communication of approval and reasons required for continued retention of seized books, failure renders further retention invalid.
Section 132(8) retention beyond the authorised period requires the Commissioner to record detailed reasons and communicate approval to the authorised officer before expiry; the authorised officer must then inform the assessee of the approval and the Commissioner's recorded reasons without delay and, in any event, within thirty days after the expiry of the authorised retention period.

Communication of Commissioner approval required promptly and reasons must be conveyed to the assessee within a short statutory period.
Approval for continued retention under section 132(8) must be communicated expeditiously along with the Commissioner's recorded reasons; assessing officers should complete scrutiny promptly and record cogent reasons before expiry when seeking further retention. The Commissioner must record detailed reasons and send approval to the authorised officer before the expiry of the applicable retention period, and the authorised officer must inform the assessee of the approval and supply the recorded reasons without delay and not later than 30 days after that expiry. Previously granted approvals require immediate communication of reasons to assessees.

Provident fund recognition timelines reaffirmed; pending applications must be reviewed and backlog cleared under Board directive.
The Board recalls its earlier directive that applications for recognition of a Provident Fund be disposed of within three months of receipt, regrets substantial non compliance and long pendency, directs Commissioners to review all pending applications and take suitable action to clear the backlog, and reiterates that future applications must be disposed within three months as previously instructed.

Settlement of audit objections through interdepartmental coordination to expedite resolution and reconcile pending audit memos.
An organised interdepartmental machinery is mandated at three levels-monthly meetings between IAC(Audit) and DAG/Sr. DAG/Joint Director, quarterly meetings between CsIT and AGs/Directors of Audit, and bi-monthly meetings between DS(PAC), CBDT and Joint Director (Receipt), C&AG-to reconcile pending major audit objections, expedite settlement of high-revenue and common disputed issues, address administrative impediments, and pursue legal references; outcomes must be reported quarterly to CBDT in prescribed proforma and field officers must ensure timely, categorical replies to audit memos.

Extension of applicability of Board instruction to State Bank of India, maintaining all existing conditional requirements for officers.
Scope of Board Instruction No.1226 is extended to include the State Bank of India, subject to all other conditions and procedural requirements remaining applicable; recipients are directed to bring this clarification to the notice of all officers under their charge.

Reference application under section 256(2): prior Board authorisation for an assessee on an issue removes need for repeat approvals.
Where the Board has authorised filing of a reference application under section 256(2) on a particular issue in an assessee's case, the Commissioner of Income Tax is not required to obtain fresh Board approval to file a reference application under section 256(2) on that same issue for the same assessee in respect of other assessment years.

Six months holding requirement waived: National Deposits Scheme deposits qualify for wealth-tax exemption if continuously held.
Deposits in the National Deposits Scheme qualify for the wealth-tax exemption only if held continuously, and as a special concession the usual six-month holding requirement is treated as satisfied where the depositor has continuously held the deposit from the date of subscription until the relevant valuation date, even if that continuous holding is less than six months.

Inspection of superannuation and gratuity fund accounts must follow established provident fund procedure and be reported annually.
Inspection of accounts of approved superannuation funds and approved gratuity funds must follow the procedural framework laid down for recognised provident funds under Instruction No.1357. Questionnaires for trustees (Annexures A and B) are provided to standardize scrutiny. A report on inspections, made in the prescribed proforma annexed to Instruction No.1357, must be submitted annually to the D.I. (Income-tax) for monitoring and onward reporting to the Board.

Verification of tax payments: annual April drive to verify and adjust credited taxes and restore misplaced returns.
The Board directs a special drive each April to verify and effect all pending adjustments of taxes paid, and to restore any missing papers to assessee files; officers must certify completion and Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners must maintain special supervisory vigilance.

Self-assessment tax compliance under Section 140A: higher-threshold returns must be scrutinised and non-compliance invites show-cause and penalties.
Returns of companies and non-company assessees above the revised income thresholds must be scrutinised to verify payment of self-assessment tax under Section 140A. Where tax on self-assessment has not been paid, show-cause notices under the provision should be issued and penalties levied where appropriate. Officers must communicate and implement these instructions, ensuring defaults are followed up administratively.