As part of its tax reform initiatives, the Government of India (GOI) is in the process of revising, consolidating and simplifying the language and structure of the direct tax laws into a single legislation - the Direct Taxes Code. In furtherance of this objective, a draft Direct Taxes Code bill along with a discussion paper was first released in 2009. This was the first time the draft bill was available for public comments.

A Revised Discussion Paper was released in June 2010 addressing some of the major identified issues. Thereafter, based on the inputs received from consultations with various stakeholders, Direct Taxes Code Bill 2010 (DTC) was placed before the Indian parliament on 30 August 2010 which seeks to substitute the existing Income tax Act (ITA) and Wealth tax Act (WTA). This was subsequently referred to the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) on 9 September 2010 for examination and report thereon.

The SCF, after having a broad based consultation with various stakeholders, submitted its report to the Parliament on 9 March 2012 in the ongoing Budget session. This E&Y Alert captures the suggestions of the SCF on key proposals of the DTC.