Reassessment powers: AO may assess escaped income and recompute allowances, even when certain procedural steps were not complied with.
Clause 279 permits the Assessing Officer, in a permissive exercise of discretion, to assess or reassess income escaping assessment and to recompute losses, depreciation and other allowances for the relevant tax year; this authority is framed subject to the procedural framework of sections 280-286. Subsection (2) allows the AO during those proceedings to assess other issues that come to notice subsequently and, in earlier draft text, expressly permits action irrespective of certain procedural non compliance, although the enacted wording narrows that explicit non compliance exception.