Income Tax serves Rs 1,700 crore tax notice to Congress after HC rejects plea

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The Congress party on Thursday claimed that the Income Tax (I-T) department had served a notice of nearly Rs 1,700 crore, including penalty and interest, for the assessment years 2017-18 to 2020-2021. The move came hours after the Delhi High Court rejected its appeal challenging the reassessment proceedings for the four assessment years.

The I-T notice will add to the worries of the national party, which has claimed it is already facing a cash crunch on the account of frozen bank accounts, just at the cusp of the Lok Sabha elections.

According to media reports, Congress lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Vivek Tankha confirmed the notices and said that the INC will further challenge the notices, terming it ‘undemocratic and unreasonable’.

Reports suggest that the tax department has already recovered Rs 135 crore from Congress’ Delhi bank accounts towards tax arrears and interests for the assessment year 2018-19.

A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav cited its earlier decision and refused to interfere with the opening of reassessment proceedings for another period. The bench said the reasoning for the earlier verdict (2014-15 to 2016-17) applied to the latest petition as well.

In the earlier petition, which was dismissed last week, the Congress party challenged the initiation of reassessment proceedings pertaining to the assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17.

The Delhi HC had rejected the plea, observing that the I-T department had submitted “substantial and concrete” evidence that warranted further scrutiny and examination. The tax department had argued that around Rs 520 crore had allegedly escaped assessment during these three years.

According to reports, the tax authority has claimed that during its searches on entities, including a few allegedly linked to the Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and a company in Surat, cash transactions involving Congress were also revealed. The I-T department cited it as a violation to enable tax exemptions available to political parties.