Income Tax Bill 2025: The Parliament of India on Tuesday passed a new Income Tax Bill replacing the 6-decade-old Income Tax Act 1961. This new bill removes unnecessary provisions and old language. Also, tax related matters have been written in simple language.
This bill is expected to come into force from April 1, 2026. But this bill also has a provision for digital searches, which can affect people’s privacy. Tax officials can also access your social media accounts, emails and cloud storage.
When this bill was introduced in Parliament in February 2025, there was a lot of controversy over digital searches. The definition of virtual digital space has been retained in the amended new bill as well. This provision gives tax officials the right to access digital information of any person. However, this will happen only when a search operation is going on against the person. In this situation, the officers can search the personal digital data of the person.
You will need to provide your log-in password
According to the provision, in case of investigation, the person has to provide log-in credentials, password or access code to the tax officials. If no password is found, the officials can forcibly access the virtual digital space through other technical measures.
What does virtual digital space include?
The virtual digital space includes all your social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, email, WhatsApp, trading accounts, banking apps, cloud storage. The data present in your gadgets is also included in it.
When can tax officials collect your personal data?
When an investigation or search operation is going on against you, or a survey is being conducted, then only in that situation tax officials can access your virtual digital space. They do not need your permission for this. If any income tax investigation is going on against a taxpayer, then the officers can access their personal information like social media, email, cloud data. However, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the tax department will bring a standard operating procedure (SOP) to handle personal digital data seized during the search.