Reduction or waiver of interest permitted where voluntary disclosure and pre-detection tax payment show sufficient cause to waive interest.
The Board directs liberal invocation of the power to reduce or waive interest under Rule 40(5) where an assessee voluntarily discloses additional income and pays tax before detection; such voluntary disclosure and payment shall be deemed sufficient evidence of being prevented by sufficient cause from filing a timely return for the purposes of Rule 117A(v), justifying waiver of interest otherwise leviable under the tax interest provisions.

Summary of High Court decisions in income tax and listing of special leave petition refusals and non-grants.
Income tax administrative instruction 1383/CBDT (February 1981) summarises High Court decisions considered by the Board for the calendar year 1978, excluding matters already reviewed, and lists cases where Special Leave Petitions were refused by High Courts and accepted by the Board, as well as cases where the supreme court did not grant Special Leave Petitions.

Exemption for United Nations pensions extends tax-free treatment where pensions are included within 'salary' definition under tax law.
Pensions paid by the United Nations to former officials are exempt from income tax where the tax statute's definition of salary includes pension, the U.N. (Privileges & Immunities) Act exempts salaries and emoluments paid by the United Nations, and the tax administration has accepted the judicial view and instructed that pending appeals be conceded and references withdrawn.

Summary assessment exclusion of specified salary and property cases mandates full scrutiny and supervisory review procedures.
Instances producing unintended advantage after deletion of certain discretionary sub-clauses must be excluded from the summary assessment scheme and assessed after scrutiny; these include ineligible salary exemptions and allowances, non-inclusion of clubbed family income, failure to add back disallowed interest, duplicate standard deduction claims, improper gratuity treatment, incorrect perquisite exemptions, and excess property-income deductions. First-time or newly disclosed property income must also be taken out of summary assessment. Commissioners should initiate review or select sampled cases for post-facto scrutiny and circulate guidance to staff.

Fourth counterfoil of chalan forms must be attached to TDS statement/certificate, not to the return of income.
Chalan Forms Nos. 2 and 8 for TDS on non-salary payments are issued with four counterfoils: the bank retains the first two, the taxpayer keeps the third, and the fourth counterfoil must be attached to the statement/certificate of tax deducted at source in the prescribed forms (Forms 25, 26, 26A, 26B, 26BB, 26C, 26D and 27) rather than to the return of income; taxpayers who used prior three-counterfoil chalans need not attach a counterfoil for those payments, but future payments must use the revised four-counterfoil chalans.

Sample scrutiny selection tightened to expand random pre-assessment checks and stricter monitoring and reporting requirements.
Instruction revises sample scrutiny selection and monitoring: selection only in the first week of August; increased selection quotas by case categories; D&CR entries and sample scrutiny register to be maintained; monthly progress reports to reflect register entries; Commissioners and CsIT to report lists and aggregate figures; Inspection Division to verify compliance; detailed examination reports to be left on files; total wealth statements to be obtained and scrutinised; wrongful deductions trigger scrutiny of subsequent years; concealment to attract maximum penalty and possible prosecution.

Tax deduction adjustment: employers may offset excess TDS withheld for lower income employees against future salary TDS.
Employers may treat tax deducted earlier on employees whose estimated annual salary falls below the raised exemption as surplus payments and adjust those amounts against tax deductible from other employees' salaries in subsequent months of the same financial year. Employers must reduce monthly tax remittances and progressive figures by the surplus amount, notify the Accountant-General with duplicate lists of affected employees and refunded amounts, and indicate refunded excess in individual tax deduction certificates. Adjustments cannot be made after the financial year; otherwise employees must claim refunds from the Income-tax Officer. The procedure applies similarly to Central Government employees.

Writing off tax arrears for Bangladesh income limited where claims or ex-gratia payments exist; partial relief allowed.
Writing off tax arrears for income earned in Bangladesh where claims have been filed with the custodian of Enemy property or ex-gratia payments made should not be processed for write-off except where the total value of claims and other assets is less than 25% of the tax arrears, in which case partial write-off may be considered under existing instructions; officers should also seek to reduce demands by granting DIT relief on certified documents as done for other countries.

Special leave petition availability: can be filed without certificate; limitation excludes time to obtain certified judgment.
An aggrieved party may file a petition for special leave to appeal directly without obtaining a High Court certificate; the limitation period for filing runs from the date of the order refusing leave or, if ascertainable only from the judgement, from the judgement date. Time taken to obtain the certified copy of the impugned judgement is excluded from computation of limitation, including where a certified copy is applied for again after refusal of leave, and these provisions apply to Income tax references.

Wealth-tax exemption increase enables refunds for taxpayers who self-assessed between the former and new exemption limits.
Increase in the wealth-tax exemption limit by the Finance (No.2) Act, 1980 applies to the current assessment year, so taxpayers whose net wealth falls between the former and raised thresholds may be entitled to refunds of tax paid on self-assessment. The tax administration is directed to process requests promptly: assessments in such cases should be taken up without delay and refunds issued if due, and this guidance must be notified to all responsible officers.

Reference procedure applicability: instruction extends income tax reference and appeal procedure to wealth, gift and estate duty matters.
The Instruction directs that the procedural steps and safeguards prescribed by Instruction No. 1378/CBDT for reference applications under the Income tax framework are to be followed mutatis mutandis by Commissioners/controllers when submitting and processing reference applications and appeals under the Wealth Tax, Gift Tax and Estate Duty Acts.

Speaking orders require reasoned findings for quasi judicial penalty and wealth tax determinations under the statute.
Orders under the penalty provisions of the Income-tax Act and corresponding Wealth-tax provisions are quasi-judicial and must be speaking orders supported by reasons tied to the facts of each case; Commissioners are instructed to record factual findings and explain the legal basis for invoking those provisions.

Taxability of excise duty refunds under section 41 requires verification that refunded amounts are brought to income.
The Board directs income tax officers to verify whether excise duty refunds have been brought to account as income under the applicable provision for each assessee, submit a compliance report by the deadline, and to collect suo motu particulars of refunds exceeding the specified threshold without waiting for excise authorities' reports.

Discontinuation of quarterly arrears statement: annual remission and abandonment report now covers adhoc and regular write-offs.
The Board discontinues the quarterly statement of arrears written off under the adhoc procedure because the Annual statement of Remission and Abandonment of claims to revenue already captures amounts written off under both adhoc and regular procedures; the quarterly reporting requirement is withdrawn and the change is to be notified to all concerned.

Credit for tax paid procedures revised to relax proof requirements and expand officer authority to grant credit.
The instruction relaxes documentary requirements for granting credit where challan foils are missing by permitting credit on a certified true copy of the assessee's challan or, if unavailable, a certified provisional cheque receipt plus departmental evidence such as DCR entries or cheque encashment records, while maintaining required verification register entries and prescribing delegated authority limits for granting credit.

Zonal committee meetings to review and expedite write off and scaling down of cases, with monthly convenings and reporting.
Each Commissioner's charge shall have its own Zonal Committee, presided over by the senior-most Commissioner and convened by the Commissioner of the charge; temporary participation by other local Commissioners is allowed if vacancies reduce membership. The committee will meet monthly to review and monitor cases for write-off and scaling down; monthly brief records of discussion must reach the Board by the twentieth, and formal minutes with complete assessment records for approved write-offs/scalings down must be sent by the CIT.