CBDT notifies Faceless Penalty (Amendment) Scheme, 2022

Notification No. 54/2022, dated 27-05-2022

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified Faceless Penalty (Amendment) Scheme, 2022 amending the provisions of the Faceless Penalty Scheme 2021 with effect from 27-05-2022.

The 5 changes introduced by the Amendment Scheme have been discussed below:

1) Regional Faceless Penalty Centres omitted
The Board has removed the ‘Regional Faceless Penalty Centres (RFPC)’ from the faceless penalty scheme. RFPC was responsible to facilitate the conduct of faceless penalty proceedings and imposing penalties in accordance with the provisions of this Scheme.

2) Penalty Unit and Penalty Review Units shall mean AO
The Board has specified that the term ‘Penalty Unit’ or ‘Penalty Review Unit’, wherever used in the Faceless Penalty Scheme, shall refer to an Assessing Officer. Such AO has powers as assigned by the Board.

3) ‘Draft Order’ replaced with ‘Penalty Imposition Proposal’
Instead of preparing a draft order for the imposition of penalty, the penalty unit shall prepare a penalty imposition proposal for the imposition of penalty.

4) Rectification Proceedings omitted
The Faceless Penalty Scheme 2021 had allowed the National Faceless Penalty Centre to rectify any mistake which is apparent from the record under this scheme. Application for rectification of mistake was allowed to be filed by:
Assessee or any other person, as the case, may be; or

• • • • Penalty unit, which prepared the order; or
      • Penalty review unit, which reviewed the order; or
      • Income-tax authority; or
      • National Faceless Assessment Centre.

The provisions for rectification of mistake under the Faceless Penalty Scheme 2021 has been omitted.

5) Record to be authentic by all units of the Scheme
An electronic record under this scheme shall be authenticated by all the units, i.e., penalty unit, penalty review unit, technical unit or verification unit, by affixing a digital signature.
Earlier, only National Faceless Penalty Centre and the assessee or any other person were required to authenticate records.

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