Enabling of filing of Form 15G/15H for payment made under life insurance policy

[Admin TMI]

Question - What are the proposed changes in Section 197A in Finance Bill 2015 ?

[Admin TMI]

Enabling of filing of Form 15G/15H for payment made under life insurance policy

The Finance (No.2) Act, 2014, inserted section 194DA in the Act with effect from 1.10.2014 to provide for deduction of tax at source at the rate of 2% from payments made under life insurance policy, which are chargeable to tax. It has been further provided that no deduction shall be made if the aggregate amount of payment during a financial year is less than ₹ 1,00,000. In spite of providing high threshold for deduction of tax under this section, there may be cases where the tax payable on recipient’s total income, including the payment made under life insurance, will be nil. The existing provisions of section 197A of the Act inter alia provide that tax shall not be deducted, if the recipient of the certain payment on which tax is deductible furnishes to the payer a self-declaration in prescribed Form No.15G/15H declaring that the tax on his estimated total income of the relevant previous year would be nil. It is, therefore, proposed to amend the provisions of section 197A for making the recipients of payments referred to in section 194DA also eligible for filing self-declaration in Form No.15G/15H for non-deduction of tax at source in accordance with the provisions of section 197A.

This amendment will take effect from 1st June, 2015.

AI Summary

Non-deduction declarations: Form 15G/15H may prevent TDS on taxable life insurance payouts when estimated tax is nil. The Finance Bill proposes to make recipients of payments under section 194DA eligible to furnish Form 15G/15H under section 197A so that where the recipient's estimated total tax liability is nil, the payer will not deduct tax at source on life insurance payments chargeable to tax; the amendment takes effect from 1st June, 2015.