Is issuance of DRC 01A mandatory

[Deepak Kothari]

Can we for once interpret that DRC-01A is obligatory?, section 74A(8) or 74A(9) provides waiver of penalty on paying tax and interest as ascertained by the proper officer before issuance of notice, hence the logical means of communicating the tax ascertained by the proper officer is DRC-01A? would like to know experts opinion on this.. Thank you  

[Sadanand Bulbule]

Though not expressly mandatory, issuance of DRC-01A is implicitly obligatory, as Sections 74A(8)-(9) require prior communication of tax ascertained by the PO to meaningfully enable penalty waiver before SCN.

AI Summary

DRC-01A issuance is treated as implicitly necessary to communicate ascertained tax and enable a penalty waiver. Sections 74A(8)-(9) require prior communication of the tax and interest ascertained by the proper officer so that a taxpayer may qualify for a penalty waiver by paying those amounts before a show-cause notice is issued; while not expressly mandatory, issuing DRC-01A is the logical administrative means to convey that ascertained figure and thus is treated as implicitly necessary to enable the statutory waiver mechanism.