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Income Tax dept issues demand notice of ₹1,700 crore to Congress
KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)
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Summary
On March 28, the Delhi High Court rejected petitions by the Congress challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four years by tax authorities.
The Income Tax Department on Friday, March 29, issued a demand notice of ₹1,700 crore to Indian National Congress. The fresh demand notice is for assessment years 2017-18 to 2020-21 and includes penalty and interest, ANI reported.
On March 28, the Delhi High Court rejected petitions by the Congress challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for a period of four years by tax authorities. A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav said the pleas were dismissed in terms of its earlier decision refusing to interfere with the opening of reassessment for another period.
The present matter pertained to assessment years 2017 to 2021.
In the earlier petition, which was dismissed last week, the Congress party had challenged initiation of reassessment proceedings pertaining to assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17.
On March 22, the high court had, while rejecting those pleas, said that the tax authority had prima facie collated “substantial and concrete” evidence warranting further scrutiny and examination under the Income Tax Act.
It had, however, left open the question as to whether the delay in commencement of proceedings would be fatal to the assessment.
The assessment of the INC was reopened for seven years (from assessment year 2014-15 to assessment year 2020-21) based on incriminating material seized, during searches in April 2019, reflecting extensive use of cash in elections, as revealed by sources to CNBC-TV18. These proceedings were getting barred on March 31 as per law, the source added.
It said that on the basis of the material which was gathered in those searches, the assessing officer also drew corresponding satisfaction notes for initiation of proceedings against the Congress.
The I-T department had, however, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision by the tax authority and that as per the material recovered, the “escaped” income of the party is more than ₹520 crore. Recently, the high court had also refused to interfere with the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal declining to stay a notice issued by the Income Tax department to the Congress for recovery of outstanding tax of more than ₹100 crore.
The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of more than ₹100 crore for the assessment year 2018-19 when the income was assessed to be more than ₹199 crore.
With inputs from PTI
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