Topic: Verifying LTA claims (for train e-tickets) and HRA claims

Hi All,

I am in the Finance department of an IT company.
Last year, many of my company's employees submitted HRA and LTA claims for tax deductions.

For LTA, many submitted e-tickets for train travel.
As train e-ticket (booked online through IRCTC) is purely soft copy, there is no concept of original ticket copy.
The tickets have to printed by the ticket owner himself/herself.

So it is very much possible that some employees booked tickets online and cancelled them
soon without travelling and thus claimed LTA illegally by printing the tickets before cancelling them
and submitting them for LTA claim.

As far as I know,in case of online tickets, it is not possible to know whether a ticket was
used for travel or not - because PNR no. gets recycled by Railways after few days of cancellation.

In case of Air Tickets, we insist on employees providing boarding passes as proof of actual travel.
But for train e-tickets, I am facing difficulty in verifying the LTA claims.
Is there any way I can verify the LTA claims made by employees so as to discourage employees from
following this malpractice?

Similarly, many employees also submitted rent receipts and rent agreements to claim HRA.
I know from inside sources that many employees also submit fake rent receipts and rent agreements
to claim higher HRA (although they pay much lower actual rent) so as to get higher tax benefits.

Is there any way I can verify such bogus HRA claims so as to discourage employees from
following this malpractice?

Thanks in advance
Rohit

U are one such idiot ..What would you gain by doing these things..GO & ask those corrupt politicians & businessmen who shield their black money & evade taxes.What u gain by auditing salaried class who are already overburden of multiple taxes bestowed on them..First see how sincere are yourself...

Hi Rohit

Recently (in January 2009) the Supreme Court of India gave the ruling that the employers, while assessing the conveyance and leave & travel allowance (LTA) claims of their staff, are under no statutory obligation to collect supporting evidence and furnish them to tax authorities.

The apex court order came in a plea by companies including Larsen & Toubro and ITI. In its defence, the revenue department had argued that assessee companies were under statutory obligation under Income Tax Act, 1961, and relevant rules, to collect documentary proof to show that their employee(s) had actually utilised the amount paid towards the leave travel concession and conveyance allowance.

Rejecting the plea, the court in its order said: “The beneficiary of exemption under Section 10(5) (of the Income Tax Act) is an individual employee. There is no circular of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) requiring the employer under Section 192 to collect and examine the supporting evidence to the declaration to be submitted by an employee(s).”

So, I feel that the employers should still collect documents as required by the Tax Authorities. The court ruling only shifts the onus from the employer to the employee; the employee can be called upon to submit proof of LTA by the IT department after filing the income tax return.

In my Personal opinion.. LTA is part of Cost to Company (CTC) which Employee has negotiated while joining the company. Basically this amount solely belongs Employee and why bother if fake bills are submitted ? income tax dept can call the employee for resubmission of LTA bills if required (which in INDIA Never happens).

Let Employee get the benefit, why stop it.

Veeresh

veeresh , Really good one

It is mounting story year after year, that the employee resort to submitting fake. Yesterday it was an secret, today it is open secret and after tomorrow it is open. It is more of a social stigma than financial loss. One of the employee in our company approached the finance department, with fake medical bills and prescription and he said to the finance dept that he paid 5% to the medical store. This was something very ridiculous by an educated(Not mere literate) profile. Management was mum since they were scared on ongoing attrition figure.

Cooldude.....you should not compare yourself with corrupt political shits and say the quantum that you are faking is less compared to them. Have an independent identity

Why on earth do such sincere officers (rohit in this case) only concentrate on poor employees... who are already paying profession tax. What about politicians, business Tycoons who not only evade taxes but drain all hard earned money.... chill dude.... employees already have lots of holes in their pockets.... dont curse them for saving few bucks.....

excellent replies.this rohith fellow is full of energy as he has just begun his corporate journey.will understand things soon.

can anyone tell me from where can i get fake travel tickets to claim LTA.

i comply with cooldude , to me it seems much immature of rohit than being mere idiotic . Rohit i guess your birth date falls in the year 2009 ... to fortify my comment i would like to ask you whether U truly know the meaning of word malpractice? I guess (it's my strong conviction in fact) you are new to the corporate world . ...I would like to draw your attention to some of the malpractices going in corporate world:
1.) Some of the company (consultancies of course are making merry) HRs are clandestinely issuing fake
experience in lieu of few bucks. To put In your words isn't it a malpractice?
2.)To mention the least back door jobs are much rampant these days, HR is the main culprit along with some
senior guys of the stature of managers.
3.) The companies are so capricious when it comes to firing. Is this use and throw policy ethical? (compensation
is not a solace for the guy who has been asked to quit)
4.) Politics has been really crap in these companies, just forsake of grabbing the project and to convince the
client of enough bench strength they will hire in bulk , aftermaths we are all aware, aren't we?
5.) Even when we are working in project aren't we sometimes asked to disguise our designation when it comes
to client handling( like from consultant to senior consultant)?
6.) Last but not the least the billing issues , even the employee is not entitled to reap the dividends of extra time
he puts in to meet the project deadline. Here also the time filled in the timesheets is only considered.

So don't you think Rohit that employee is just getting his due in the roundabout way?
So please don't talk bullshit of the hard earned money of the employees.

abhishek

HI,this means are u people encouraging corruption?

Hi,can anybody tell me what bill is to be selected from bills submitted by employee for LTA.only one is to select right.

if the employee wants to claim less amount than he can claim,then what to take whether claimed amount or amount he can claim.

These questions may be silly to you.But Please reply

This reminds the story of indian crabs....!! Yu dont need to lock them up in a bucket... Put them freely in the bucket .. one will not let the other to escape from it...!!

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