Maintenance of accounts by certain persons carrying on profession or business
21[Maintenance of accounts by certain persons carrying on profession or business.
44AA. (1) Every person carrying on legal, medical, engineering or architectural profession or the profession of accountancy or technical consultancy or interior decoration or any other profession as is notified22 by the Board in the Official Gazette shall keep and maintain such books of account and other documents as may enable the Income-tax Officer to compute his total income in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
(2) Every person carrying on business or profession [not being a profession referred to in sub-section (1)] shall,—
(i) if his income from business or profession exceeds twenty-five thousand rupees or his total sales, turnover or gross receipts, as the case may be, in business or profession exceed or exceeds two hundred and fifty thousand rupees in any one of the three years immediately preceding the previous year ; or
(ii) where the business or profession is newly set up in any previous year, if his income from business or profession is likely to exceed twenty-five thousand rupees or his total sales, turnover or gross receipts, as the case may be, in business or profession are or is likely to exceed two hundred and fifty thousand rupees, during such previous year,
keep and maintain such books of account and other documents as may enable the Income-tax Officer to compute his total income in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
23(3) The Board may, having regard to the nature of the business or profession carried on by any class of persons, prescribe, by rules, the books of account and other documents (including inventories, wherever necessary) to be kept and maintained under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2), the particulars to be contained therein and the form and the manner in which and the place at which they shall be kept and maintained.,
(4) Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-section (3), the Board may prescribe, by rules, the period for which the books of account and other documents to be kept and maintained under sub-section (1) or sub-section (2) shall be retained.]
21. Inserted by the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Act, 1975, w.e.f. 1-4-1976.
22. For professions specified, see Notification No. SO 17(E), dated 12-1-1977, reproduced in Taxmann's Direct Taxes Circulars, Vol. 1, 1980 edn., pp. 288-89.
23. See rule 6F.
[As amended by the Finance Act, 1983]