The Income Tax Department (also referred to as IT Department; abbreviated as ITD) is a government agency undertaking direct tax collection of the government of India. It functions under the Department of Revenue of the Ministry of Finance. The Income Tax Department is headed by the apex body Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The main responsibility of the Income Tax Department is to enforce various direct tax laws, most important among these being the Income-tax Act, 1961, to collect revenue for the government of India. It also enforces other economic laws such as the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988, and the Black Money Act, 2015.
The Income Tax Act, 1961, has a wide scope and empowers ITD to levy tax on the income of individuals, firms, companies, local authorities, societies, or other artificial juridical persons. Thus, the Income Tax Department influences businesses, professionals, NGOs, income earning citizens, and local authorities, among others. The act empowers the Income Tax Department to tax international businesses and professionals and therefore ITD deals in all matters of double taxation avoidance agreements and various other aspects of international taxation such as transfer pricing. Combating tax evasion and tax avoidance practices is a key duty of ITD to ensure constitutionally guided political economy. One measure to combat aggressive tax avoidance is the general anti avoidance rule (GAAR).
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