Form 61A of Income Tax Act – Statement of Specified Financial Transactions ( SFT )
Section 285BA of the IT Act requires specified reporting persons to furnish statement of monetary transaction. Rule 114E of the IT Rules, 1962 provides that the statement of financial transaction needs to be furnished under sub-section (1) of section 285BA of Act shall be furnished in the prescribed Form No. 61A. Financial Budget 2019 widens the scope of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT). So therefore from this Financial Year 2019-20, compliance will be more difficult.
Contents of the Article:-
- Which are the Specified Financial Transactions?
- Due Date to File Form 61A and Consequences in case of default.
- List of Transactions along with respective reporting person who needs to furnish Form 61A.
- Different parts of Form 61A.
- How to furnish the Statement of Financial Transaction Form 61A electronically?
Which are the Specified Financial Transactions?
Below referred transactions are covered under Specified Financial Transactions:
- Sale, purchase or exchange of products, right, property, or interest in any property.
- Works contract.
- Delivering services.
- Any investment or expenditure.
- Accepting any deposit or taking any loan.
It is important to notice that CBDT can recommend different values with reference to different transactions for various persons by considering the character of the transactions. The aggregated value of transactions in that particular financial year should exceed Rs. 50,000.
Due Date to File Form 61A and Consequences in case of default:-
This statement for the previous FY (financial year) must be furnished within May 31st of the following Financial Year. In case an assessee fails to do so, the income tax department will issue a notice to such an assessee, demanding the assessee to submit the same within 30 days from the issuance of such notice. In case such assessee continues to be the assessee in default by not answering to such notice, a penalty would be levied on the assessee that amounts to INR 500/day of such default. This penalty would be calculated from the expiry of the grace period as stipulated in such notice.
List of Transactions alongwith respective reporting person who needs to furnish Form 61A:-
| Sr. No. | Assessee responsible for furnishing Form 61A | Type of Transaction | Limit
|
| 1) | Banking Companies and Co-operative Banks | Cash payment for purchase of POs (Purchase orders) / DDs (Demand drafts). | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 2) | Banking Companies and Co-operative Banks | Cash payment for purchasing any prepaid RBI instruments like RBI bonds, etc. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 3) | Banking Companies and Co-operative Banks | Cash Deposits or withdrawals from a current account of an account holder. | Aggregating to INR 50 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 4) | Banking Companies, Co-operative Banks and Post Offices | Cash Deposit in one or more accounts of an account holder other than a current account. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 5) | Banking Company, Co-operative Bank, Post Master General of Post office, Nidhi or NBFCs | One or more time deposits (other than renewed time deposit of another time deposit) of a person. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 6) | Banking Company, Co-operative Bank, any other company or institution issuing credit card | Cash payment against any credit card bill which is issued to a customer in a year. | Aggregating to:
INR 1 lakh or more in cash or INR 10 lakh or more by any other mode in a FY. |
| 7) | A company or an institution issuing debentures or bonds | Receipt from any person for acquiring such debentures/bonds. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 8) | A company issuing shares | Receipt from any person for acquiring such shares. This includes share application money received. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 9) | Listed companies | Share buy-back from a person. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 10) | Manager/Trustee of a Mutual Fund | Receipt from any person acquiring the units of Mutual Fund. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 11) | A Dealer of Foreign Exchange | Receipt from any person for sale of a foreign currency or expenses incurred in such foreign currency via a debit/credit card or via issue of draft or traveller’s cheque or any other financial instrument. | Aggregating to INR 10 lakh or more in a FY. |
| 12) | Inspector-General/Sub-Registrar appointed under the Registration Act, 1908 | Sale/ Purchase by a person of an immovable property. | For the amount of INR 30 lakhs or more or which is valued by stamp valuation authority at INR 30 lakhs or more. |
| 13) | Persons liable for audit u/s 44AB of the Income Tax Act | Cash receipt for sale of goods or rendering of services (other the ones specified above). | Exceeding INR 2 lakhs by a person. |
Different parts of Form 61A:-
Form 61A has two parts:
Part A: It contains the statement level information which is common to all transaction types.
The second part is report level information which has to be reported in any one of the following parts (depending of the nature of the transaction):
Part B (Person Based Reporting), or
Part C (Account Based Reporting), or
Part D (Immovable Property Transaction Reporting).
How to furnish the Statement of Financial Transaction Form 61A electronically?
The process of furnishing of Statement of Financial Transaction in Form 61A is divided in two major steps:
- Generation of Secured Statement Package through the java based Generic submission Utility available on reporting portal with the help of Digital Signature of the authorized signatory.
- Uploading of the Secured Statement Package generated.
Statements generated by reporting entities using report generation and validation utilities at first step can be uploaded on the reporting portal directly or through submission utility.
Uploading of the Secured Statement Package (through Reporting Portal):-
- Register yourself on Reporting portal under My Account menu.
- Please note that all statements uploaded to the Reporting Portal should be in the XML format consistent with the prescribed schema published by the Income-tax Department.
- Once XML is generated, sign and encrypt the XML using the Submission utility and prepare package to be uploaded.
- On successful generation of submission package, login to the reporting portal and click on Statements on the top toolbar.
- Click the File Statement button on the left sidebar.
- On the Upload Statement page, fill out all the fields and select the relevant options from dropdown lists.
- Against the Statement (.zip) field, click Browse and locate the secured XML statement package prepared from submission utility to upload.
- Click Upload.
- If manifest validation error appears, correct the relevant errors either on the screen or in Part A of the statement.
- Upon successful upload, the following dialog box appears:-
Form 61A has been uploaded successfully. An email has been sent to your registered email id along with generated transaction No. “XXXXX.” Kindly login after 24 hours to check the status of uploaded report.
Uploading of the Secured Statement Package (through Generic Submission Utility):-
The Statement Upload section of the submission utility allows Reporting Entity to upload secured statement package (Digitally Signed Statement) generated through secure XML section.
- Click the Statement tab. This opens the Statement Upload section by default.
- Fill the login credentials and other relevant fields/ select the relevant options from dropdown lists.
- Click Browse and attach the secured XML statement package prepared from the Secure XML section to upload.
- Click Validate to display validation errors.
- If manifest validation error appears, correct these errors either in upload form or in Part A of statement through report generation utility.
- If no manifest error is displayed, the Upload button will appear.
Click the Upload button. Upon successful upload, Acknowledgement message will be displayed.
Note: Please ensure that the digital signature of the authorized signatory used for the generation of Secured Statement Package should be registered at the reporting portal.