Congress moves Delhi High Court against I-T notice for recovery of over Rs 105 crore outstanding tax

On March 8, the ITAT had dismissed the Congress’s plea for stay, observing that “once the mandatory requirements contained in Section 13A of the Act is violated, there is no discretion with the income tax authorities to give any relaxation in allowing the exemption envisaged”. It had said the party was unable to make out a “strong prima facie case” against the interpretation of Section 13A of the Act as adopted by department to deny exemption.

Section 13A pertains to instances wherein certain income such as “voluntary contributions received by a political party from any person” is not included in the total income of the previous year of such a political party.

While dismissing the stay application, the Tribunal had also clarified that its observations in the March 8 order have been made only for deciding the stay application and shall have no effect on the merits of the case.

According to the ITAT order, the assessment of the Congress party for the year 2018-19 was completed at an income of Rs 1,99,15,26,560 “against nil income” declared in its return, thereby resulting in a demand of Rs 105,17,29,635. The order noted that the difference between the returned and assessed income is solely for the reason that the Congress claim for exemption under Section 13A of the Income Tax Act has been denied by the assessing officer, and the entire income of Rs 1,99,15,26,560 was held to be taxable.

One of the grounds on which the assessing officer had faulted the Congress party’s claim of exemption was that it had “received donations of Rs14,49,000 in cash from various persons, each donation being in excess of Rs 2,000”.

Curated For You

IndiGo Flight Cancellations LIVE Updates: IndiGo cancels over 180 flights from Delhi, Mumbai & B’luru; DGCA probes matter

Dharmendra gifted ancestral property worth Rs 5 cr to his nephew, not his children for this reason

Akshay Kumar-Priyanka Chopra’s relationship soured; I cut him from my film, says Suneel Darshan: ‘His mistake, why should she suffer?’