Payment Of LTA As Salary If Not Traveled

LTA is a part of my salary (CTC) in my current employment with a private firm in Raipur. I have not claimed any tax exemption and paid taxes (TDS) on my LTA amount in financial year 2014-15, as I had not gone for any travel through out the year. The finance department of the company demands travel bills for payment of LTA part of my CTC in salary otherwise they will not pay it at all. Please clarify that, is LTA not payable to employee without travel bills in this situation?

Hi,
If you will submit Travel bills to Finance department than they will give you tax benefit as a part of salary head.
If you will not submit any bills then it should be fully taxable, they have already released your salary so cant ask you for payment.
Current block is running i.e. 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2017, in these time period you can claim twise LTA for tax exemption.
Please clarify with your finance department if any misunderstanding is there.

Ashish has rightly suggested . In addition , as per supreme court's ruling documentary evidence is not required to claim LTA.

Hello Gaurir,
Is it possible to share the copy of the Supreme Court Hearing.

Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) is the most common element of compensation adopted by employers to remunerate employees considering the tax benefits which are attached to the allowance.. LTA is the reimbursement paid by employer for travel of Employee within the country, when he/she is on leave and travelling with family or alone -

LTA current block of four years 2014-17.

LTA is only for traveling fare.

Suppose you spend Rs 20000 on holiday including stay etc but Rs15000 is travel expense,your reimbursement will be Rs15000 only.

Honble Sc in the case of Larsen and Tourbo and ITI has ruled that employer is not under any statutory obligation to collect travel bills as proof of travel expenses.

But remember the assessing IT officer is within his rights to ask for documentary evidence while scrutinising your IT return.

IT circular of 2013, asking employers to retain documentary evidence of travel seem to overlooked Honble SC ruling.

I would advice preservation of travel tickets for the amount claimed as LTA as a precaution to avoid any subsequent IT queries.

If it is part of CTC, you should get it but fully taxable if not undertaken travel.
Pon

Dear RNM Consultants

LTA : Evidence of Expenses Employers, while processing 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 Supreme Court said on Jan 21, 2009. A bench comprising Justice SH Kapadia and Justice Aftab Alam said that assessee employers are under no statutory obligation to collect bills and details to prove that the employees had utilised the amounts obtained against these claims on travel and related expenses. Case Details CIVIL APPEAL NO.993 OF 2005 / WITH NO. 992 OF 2005 COMMISSIONER OF INCOME TAX & ANR. V/s LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD Order • A short question which arises for determination in these Civil Appeal(s) is whether the assessee(s) was under statutory obligation under Income Tax Act, 1961, and/or the Rules to collect evidence to show that its employee(s) had actually utilized the amount(s) paid towards Leave Travel Concession(s)/Conveyance Allowance? • It may be noted that the beneficiary of exemption under Section 10(5) 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). • For the above reasons there is no merit in the Civil Appeals and the same are dismissed with no order as to costs.

HI
If LTA is part of CTC, I should get it fully taxable, How to show in salary Slip?