The Income Tax (IT) division has served a recent notice of Rs 1,700 crore to the Congress for discrepancies in tax returns for earlier years, dealing one other blow to the cash-strapped social gathering forward of the Lok Sabha polls, sources mentioned right now (March 29).
The tax penalties together with curiosity relate to discrepancies in tax returns for years 2017-18 to 2020-21, the sources mentioned. The recent notice was acquired earlier this week. The Congress is already dealing with a funds crunch after Income Tax authorities imposed a penalty of Rs 210 crore and froze its funds.
The social gathering has not acquired any reduction from the High Court within the case and is prone to transfer the Supreme Court. Congress has accused the BJP of compacting it financially and of utilizing tax authorities towards it forward of Lok Sabha elections starting April 19.
Delhi HC dismisses pleas towards tax reassessment proceedings
The Delhi High Court on Thursday (March 28) rejected petitions by the Congress difficult the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings towards it for a interval of 4 years by tax authorities. A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav mentioned the pleas had been dismissed by way of its earlier determination refusing to intervene with the opening of reassessment for an additional interval.
The current matter pertained to evaluation years 2017 to 2021. In the sooner petition, which was dismissed final week, the Congress social gathering had challenged initiation of reassessment proceedings pertaining to evaluation years 2014-15 to 2016-17. On March 22, the excessive court docket had, whereas rejecting these pleas, mentioned that the tax authority had prima facie collated “substantial and concrete” proof warranting additional scrutiny and examination.
It had, nevertheless, left open the query as as to if the delay in graduation of proceedings could be deadly to the evaluation. In that petition, the Congress had contended that motion beneath Section 153C (evaluation of earnings of every other particular person) of Income Tax Act was primarily based on searches which had been performed on 4 people in April, 2019, and was barred by limitation.
It mentioned that on the premise of the fabric which was gathered in these searches, the assessing officer additionally drew corresponding satisfaction notes for initiation of proceedings towards the Congress. The I-T division had, nevertheless, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision by the tax authority and that as per the fabric recovered, the “escaped” earnings of the social gathering is greater than Rs 520 crore.
Recently, the excessive court docket had additionally refused to intervene with the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal declining to remain a notice issued by the Income Tax division to the Congress for restoration of excellent tax of greater than Rs 100 crore. The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of greater than Rs 100 crore for the evaluation yr 2018-19 when the earnings was assessed to be greater than Rs 199 crore.
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