Return filing modernization enables rulemaking for electronic forms, verification, and document on demand in a risk based regime.
Clause 263(2)(a) empowers the Board to prescribe the form, manner, verification and electronic transmission of returns, to specify which supporting documents need not accompany the return but must be produced on demand, and to require prescribed particulars in returns (such as exempt income, specified assets, bank and card details, high value expenditures, audit reports and business or partner details), thereby enabling a risk based, post filing verification regime and differentiated electronic filing requirements for classes of taxpayers.

Tax Return Preparer scheme shifts operational detail to subordinate legislation, increasing administrative discretion and need for oversight.
Clause 264 empowers the Central Board of Direct Taxes to notify a Tax Return Preparer scheme allowing specified non corporate, non audited persons to have returns prepared and furnished through authorised TRPs. The clause retains exclusions for audit required entities and certain disqualified persons, mandates scheme notification as per the statutory procedure, and delegates operational details-qualifications, authorisation period, code of conduct, duties, withdrawal and disciplinary mechanisms-to subordinate legislation, increasing administrative flexibility while placing emphasis on oversight, transparency, and transitional arrangements.

PAN-Aadhaar authentication strengthens transaction traceability and imposes reciprocal verification duties on parties.
Clause 262(9) requires every person entering into prescribed transactions to quote and authenticate their PAN or Aadhaar and obliges recipients of transaction documents to ensure such quoting and authentication, with authentication involving verification against demographic or biometric information through prescribed authorities and modalities to be specified by the CBDT.

Permanent Account Number and Aadhaar integration expands mandatory identification and digital authentication for specified transactions and filings.
Clause 262 consolidates allotment, quoting and authentication of the Permanent Account Number and integrates PAN with Aadhaar by mandating application and quoting obligations for specified classes, enabling voluntary applications, requiring intimation of changes, prohibiting multiple PANs, and empowering rule-making and notification to prescribe transactions, authentication procedures and exemptions; it permits Aadhaar linkage and use in lieu of PAN, contemplates inoperative PAN for non-intimation, and relies on Rules 114AAB, 114B, 114BA and 114BB for operational detail while triggering penalties under the existing framework modeled on Section 272B.

Mandatory Return Filing expands scope and tightens timelines while enabling updated returns with safeguards.
Clause 263 consolidates and expands return-filing obligations by listing classes of mandatory filers, requiring threshold income computation without regard to specified exemptions, defining key terms such as beneficial owner and specified entity, prescribing differentiated due dates, authorising rule-making for electronic filing and return particulars, providing a nine-month window for belated and revised returns, maintaining a forty-eight-month updated return regime subject to specified exclusions, and setting a procedure for defective returns with a rectification period and potential invalidation if unrectified.

Controlled disclosure of taxpayer information limited by a public interest test, with executive power to restrict access and final administrative decisions.
Clause 258 authorises income tax authorities to disclose information obtained in the discharge of their functions to other tax, duty, cess, or foreign exchange authorities and to notified bodies, constrained by necessity and a public interest limitation; it allows private parties to apply for information subject to satisfaction of senior tax officials and renders disclosure decisions final and non justiciable, while empowering the Central Government by notification to restrict furnishing of information for specified classes of assessees or authorities.

Deemed judicial status for tax proceedings brings perjury and court grade procedural safeguards to tax adjudication processes.
Clause 257 treats proceedings before income tax authorities as judicial proceedings and deems those authorities to be Civil Courts for specified sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, thereby subjecting participants to penal provisions for false evidence, insult to authority, and related offences while preserving a complaint based procedural safeguard for initiating prosecutions through the income tax authority.

Faceless collection of information: executive empowered to implement digital, non interface tax information schemes with parliamentary oversight.
Clause 260 empowers the Central Government, by notification, to create a faceless collection of information scheme for calling for and collecting tax information, inspecting company registers, and exercising assessing powers, enabling elimination of physical interfaces, centralised resource optimisation, team based dynamic jurisdiction, and exceptions or modifications to other statutory provisions to implement the scheme, with the requirement that notifications be laid before both Houses of Parliament.

Powers of competent authority: generic clause grants Assessing Officer equivalent enquiry powers, raising definition and safeguard concerns.
Clause 256 gives a competent authority the power to make any enquiry under the Act with all the powers of an Assessing Officer, mirroring Section 135 of the 1961 Act but replacing an enumerative list of officials with a generic term whose scope depends on definitions and notifications; the clause defers procedural safeguards to the general framework of the Act, making clear definition and transparent designation critical to avoid arbitrariness and jurisdictional overlap.

Inspection of company registers enables tax units to verify ownership and financial interests under faceless assessment reforms.
Inspection of company registers authorises specified income-tax authorities to inspect and copy registers of members, debenture holders and mortgagees to verify ownership and transactions; such inspections require specific written authorisation and Clause 255 expands exercisable authority to unit-based entities like assessment and verification units, enabling centralized and faceless access while raising questions on necessity thresholds, coverage of electronic records, and procedural safeguards.

Power to call for information: targeted verification notices enable centralized processing while raising data privacy and procedural safeguard concerns.
Clause 259 empowers a prescribed income tax authority to issue notices to any person to furnish information useful for or relevant to verifying information already in the authority's possession, requiring specification of form, manner and time. Sub clause (2) permits processing and utilisation of received information under a scheme to be notified under section 260, indicating standardized, centralized data handling while leaving procedural safeguards, definition of "proceeding," and privacy protections to the forthcoming scheme.

Power to collect information: authorised tax officers may require prescribed business records during business hours with non-removal safeguards.
Clause 254 empowers designated income-tax officers to enter premises where a business or profession is carried on during business hours and require proprietors, employees or other persons to furnish prescribed information, while expressly prohibiting removal of books, documents, cash, stock or valuable articles. The power is linked to subordinate rules that prescribe the form and content of information, limits activity to collection (not search or seizure), and includes specified ranks and authorised inspectors subject to delegation and procedural safeguards.

Survey powers modernisation expands access to digital records while preserving timing limits and prior approval safeguards.
Clause 253 expands survey powers to include computer systems, electronic media and virtual digital space, permits entry to any place where business is carried on or where records are kept, and obliges persons present to provide access and technical assistance. It limits entry hours, restricts removal of assets, authorises marking, extracts, oath-recorded statements, time limited impounding with recorded reasons and inventories, mandates prior senior approval for surveys and allows enforcement measures for non-cooperation.

Power to call for information enables tax authorities to require verified data from wide categories to support tax enquiries.
Clause 252 confers an expansive authority on specified income-tax officers to require verified information, accounts, and returns from a wide range of persons and intermediaries - including banks, firms, HUFs, trustees, assessees in relation to specified payments, and dealers/brokers/exchanges - to support enquiries, assessments, investigations and international information-exchange, while prescribing approval safeguards where no proceedings are pending and authorising prescribed forms and verification.

Application of seized assets: statute permits AO to appropriate assets for tax recovery while preserving release safeguards.
Clause 250 authorises the Assessing Officer to apply assets seized or requisitioned towards tax, penalty and interest liabilities (excluding advance tax), covering liabilities under the new Act, the Income tax Act and the Black Money Act. It preserves application of money first, permits appropriation and sale of non monetary assets as prescribed, and allows other recovery modes. Assets may be released on application within thirty days subject to AO satisfaction and senior officer approval and must be released within 120 days; excess assets must be returned and interest is payable on prolonged retention under a specified formula.

Non-disclosure of reason to believe or suspect limits appellate access while preserving investigative secrecy in tax searches.
Clause 249 bars disclosure of the reason to believe or reason to suspect recorded by income-tax authorities under sections 247 and 248 to any person, authority, or the Appellate Tribunal, thereby insulating the subjective satisfaction that authorises search, seizure, or requisition from appellate scrutiny while leaving constitutional courts able to review reasons in appropriate proceedings.

Requisition powers enable tax authorities to obtain material held by other agencies for tax proceedings.
Clause 248 authorises a senior approving authority, on forming a reason to believe that summoned books, documents, electronic records or assets are in another authority's custody or will not be produced, to empower specified officers to requisition such material; on delivery the material is treated as if seized, invoking seizure related procedural safeguards while allowing the original authority to retain material until it is no longer necessary for its own proceedings.

Retention limits on seized materials ensure time-bound return and supervised copying rights under the proposed income tax clause.
Clause 251 governs copying, extraction, retention and release of seized books, documents and electronic records, requiring transfer to the jurisdictional Assessing Officer where necessary, preserving a supervised right to make copies or extracts on application, and imposing a default retention period with extensions only on recorded reasons and higher approval; an absolute cap prohibits retention beyond thirty days after completion of all proceedings, and affected persons may object to continued retention before the Board which must hear them.

Non-disclosure of reasons protects search and seizure confidentiality while limiting appellate access and focusing review on procedural defects.
Clause 249 creates an absolute statutory bar on disclosure of the "reason to believe" or "reason to suspect" recorded for authorising searches and seizures, preventing disclosure to any person, authority, or the Appellate Tribunal. It preserves the requirement to record reasons and follow procedures but confines challenges to procedural defects, manifest arbitrariness, or jurisdictional absence; constitutional courts may still examine reasons in camera in exceptional cases of mala fides or lack of jurisdiction.

Search and seizure powers modernized to encompass electronic records, provisional attachment, and expanded evidentiary presumptions.
Clause 247 modernises search and seizure for income tax enforcement by explicitly covering electronic records and undisclosed foreign assets, authorising entry, search, extraction, seizure or prohibitory orders, requisitioning technical assistance, and provisional attachment subject to prior approval and recorded reasons, while retaining the reason to believe standard and rebuttable statutory presumptions regarding ownership and authenticity of seized material.