The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is a statutory body and the apex administrative institution for direct tax laws in India, functioning under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance. Its origin lies in the Central Boards of Revenue Act, 1963, which formally bifurcated the original Central Board of Revenue (established in 1924) into two separate boards. This split solved the problem of administering both direct and indirect taxes under a single authority, creating the CBDT for direct taxes and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (now CBIC) for indirect taxes.
The CBDT is the policy-formulating and supervisory head of the Income Tax Department. It is constituted as a Board comprising a Chairman and six Members, all drawn from the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax). Its key mechanism is the power to issue binding instructions and orders to subordinate income-tax authorities, which is principally derived from Section 119 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The CBDT connects directly to the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), which is its counterpart for indirect taxes like GST and Customs. Both boards operate under the Department of Revenue. While the CBDT’s core mandate has remained consistent, its counterpart, the CBEC, was renamed to CBIC in 2017 to reflect its expanded role following the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).