New Utility for Form 3CB, 3CD and other tax audit forms released by CBDT with errors? | What will happen to TAR submitted between 01st OCT to 22nd OCT?

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We had discussed in our post that various changes have been made in tax audit report’s schema and utility on 01.10.2020. The various changes announced are as under:

“in Part A, after serial number 8 and the entries relating thereto, the following shall be inserted, namely: –

“8a. Whether the assessee has opted for taxation under section 115BA/115BAA/115BAB?”

2. in Part B, – (I) in serial number 18, after clause (c), the following clauses shall be inserted, namely: –

“(ca) Adjustment made to the written down value under section 115BAA (for assessment year 2020-21 only)

(cb) Adjusted written down value”;

(II) in serial number 32, for clause (a), the following clause shall be substituted, namely: –

“(a) Details of brought forward loss or depreciation allowance, in the following manner, to the extent available:

*If the assessed depreciation is less and no appeal pending than take assessed.
^ To be filled in for assessment year 2020-21 only.”;”

To read the amendment’s in detail CLICK HERE.

Thus, the amendments incorporated were mainly related to new scheme of lower tax for companies.

The main point of this post is not about the new schema or changes in new scheme, the main question here is that the schema was announced on 01.10.2020, however the utility for same was made available for filing in the night of 22.10.2020 by the CBDT as can be seen from the image below:

Thus, what about the Tax audit reports (TAR) filed between 01.10.2020 to 22.10.2020?

There are several views that the audit reports filed between 01.10.2020 to 22.10.2020 using the old schema would be invalid and people will have to again file the same.

However there are views of some professionals that even though the new schema was announced but since the same was not available any Tax audit report filed between 01.10.2020 to 22.10.2020 would be valid and there is no need to file the same again.

One such view was shared on Professional Development committee forum of ICAI wherein it was said that such tax audit reports would be valid which is as under:

We support this view because we think that till the time new schema is not made available old schema is valid. Further in case of Income tax return also we can see that as soon as new schema is available if a person uses old schema the website itself doesn’t allow the person to file return.

Also, in the last few days of tax audit one cannot wait for old schema.

Thus, if the Income tax department wanted people to not file Form 3CD, it would have restricted filing of Form 3CD with old schema.

Hence, it can be said that 3CD won’t be rejected and no one would be required to file their tax audit report again but there is old clarification CBDT on e-filing website from 2014 wherein they have mentioned that once new schema has been announced tax audit filed in old schema would be invalid even if new schema/ utility is not available:

No such clarification has been issued for this utility and many people have issued UDIN for their tax audit report and after 15 days same cannot be revoked. Thus, it would be very discouraging to CA if the CBDT rejects those 3CD just because they were not able to release the utility in due time.

It must also be understood that many people for the convenience uses software’s to file their Tax audit report and once utility is released by CBDT, the software owners will again take few days to update the utility and hence all this cannot be done at last minute.

However even after the release of new schema people are facing error and issues with schema while filing it on e filing portal where some error is shown and many people are facing such error.

Many people are facing such issue and have complained that the new schema has some inbuilt error in the schema and they are not able to file 3CD even with new schema. Screenshot of same is as under:

Thus, now after the release of new schema if someone uses old Tax audit report it could be considered as incorrect but even with new schema one would not be able to file Tax audit report.

Keeping all the things in mind, release of new schema on 22.10.2020, with due date of tax audit report on 31.10.2020 and error in new tax audit report schema one could safely say that we will see an extension of due date in Tax audit within 2-3 days.

Do comment your thoughts if you have also faced such problem.

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