Circular No. 5/2017

Measures for reducing litigation - Clarification on Circulars 21/2015 and 8/2016

What this is

Circular No. 5/2017 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 23 January 2017. Its subject is Measures for reducing litigation - Clarification on Circulars 21/2015 and 8/2016.

This fixes the monetary limits below which the department will not appeal. It binds the department only: it is not a rule about the merits, and an assessee cannot draw an inference from a withdrawn appeal.

The instrument itself

The department publishes this one as a scanned document rather than as text, so there is nothing here for us to reproduce. The signed document is on the department’s own site — this file.

← Corrigendum 01/2017 · Circular No. 4/2017 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.