Section 234C

³[Interest for deferment of advance tax.

234C. (1) Where in any financial year, the advance tax paid by the assessee on his current income on or before the 15th day of September is less than twenty per cent of the tax due on the returned income or the amount of such advance tax paid on or before the 15th day of December is less than fifty percent of the tax due on the returned income, then, the assessee shall be liable to pay simple interest at the rate of one and one-half per cent per month of the shortfall from for a period of three months on the amount of the shortfall from twenty percent or, as the case may be, fifty per cent of the tax due on the returned income.

⁴[Provided that nothing contained in this sub-section shall apply to any shortfall in the payment of the tax due on the returned income where such shortfall is on account of under-estimate or failure to estimate—

(a) the amount of capital gains; or

(b) income of the nature referred to in sub-clause (ix) of clause (24) of section 2,

and the assessee has paid the whole of the amount of tax payable in respect of income referred to in clause (a) or clause (b), as the case may be, had such income been a part of the total income, as part of the instalment of advance tax which is immediately due or where no such instalment is so due, by the 31st day of March of the financial year. ]

Explanation : In this section, "tax due on the returned income " means the tax chargeable on the total income declared in the return of income furnished by the assessee for the assessment year commencing on the 1st day of April immediately following the financial year in which the advance tax is paid as reduced by ⁵[the amount of tax deductible or collectible at source in accordance with the provisions of Chapter XVII on any income which is subject to such deduction or collection] and which is taken into account in computing such total income.

(2) The provisions of this section shall apply in respect of assessments for the assessment year commencing on the 1st day of April 1989 and subsequent assessment years. ]

 

 

 

[As amended by the Finance Act, 1989 and the Direct Tax Laws (Amendment) Act, 1989]