Employees would have to show income from agriculture in their IT Returns

Chandigarh, March 5, 2015: The Punjab Vigilance Department today cautioned all employees/ officers of government department to properly show the income being received by them from agriculture in their income tax returns.

According to spokesperson of Vigilance Department it has been noticed that employees/officers were not following instructions in these regards. He clarified that according to income tax act, income received by employee/officer was not exempted from income tax as these exemption available only to those who are in agriculture profession fully and were not in other vocation/ employment. He said that for the government servant income from agriculture has to be included in their salaries and would be classified as standard deduction. He said that for calculating tax income from agriculture has to be included in the gross salary. He said that this law is applicable to all who are in government or private service.

Clarifying further that in the case of disproportionate income offence under anti corruption act, section 13(1) (e) only that income is considered is legal income which is thorough legal sources and that has been declared in writing under law, rules by concerned employee/officer. Under this act only that income would be considered income from known sources which has been declared by government servant to his department and shown in income tax returns. Failure to do this would amount to concealment of income and legally it would not be liable to be included in the income.

The spokesperson that some government servant were not showing income from agriculture in their income tax returns citing a logic that this income was tax free. He said that it was imperative for all government servant to show all kind of returns in their property or income tax returns whether these income were eligible form exemption or not. He said that instruction have been issued to all heads of the department to inform their employees to include agriculture income in their gross income otherwise it would deem to be considered as concealed income.