Tax terrorism, says Congress, as it gets an I-T notice to pay Rs 1,823 crore

While the party has received the demand notices for a whopping Rs 1,823 crore, no detailed orders (the nature of alleged undeclared income for each financial year) has yet been served on them.

Rajya Sabha member V K Tankha, who was handling some of the tax litigation for the party, told The Indian Express, “The Congress certainly does not have such funds to pay the tax demanded and penalties applied. What we do know is that notices have come for around Rs 1,800 crore and that more demands from the Income Tax  are to follow. But we are prepared to take up the challenge and it is the people who will have to fight our battles now.”

Calling it “tax terrorism” to “financially cripple” the party in the run-up to the elections, the Congress said it will move the Supreme Court against the ongoing I-T action. “Who is pressuring the Income Tax Department to act in this unjustified manner only against the Opposition? Why is the I-T department being allowed to be used as a weapon to harass the principal opposition party, the Congress. They are misusing institutions like IT, ED, CBI to subvert Democracy and belittle the Constitution,” Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said.

“The I-T department has now given a notice of a total of Rs 1,823 crore to the Congress party. They have already withdrawn Rs 135 crore from Congress party’s accounts, which is a fund collected by us through crowdsourcing.”

The I-T department had traced “unaccounted transactions” of Rs 523.87 crore during raids conducted prior to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In March this year, the Congress party lost its appeal before the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) where it had sought a stay on withdrawal of Rs 135 crore from its bank accounts. On March 22, it also lost in the Delhi High Court a challenge to the search operations conducted by the I-T department. The party had argued that these were “time-barred” and a “delayed action”.

On Friday, All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Saket Gokhale said he had received 11 notices from the I-T department in the last 72 hours and alleged that pressure on the Opposition ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Gokhale said some of the notices go back almost seven years.

The Communist Party of India (CPI), too, has received a notice from the I-T department, asking it to pay “dues” of Rs 11 crore for allegedly using an old PAN card while filing tax returns over the last few years. The party said it was consulting its lawyers to challenge the notice of the tax authorities.

The Congress alleged the BJP was in “serious violation” of income-tax laws for which tax authorities should raise a demand of more than Rs 4,600 crore from the ruling party.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters with Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, party treasurer Ajay Maken said the “BJP-ruled I-T department” has so far forcibly taken out Rs 135 crore from the Congress’s bank accounts due to an alleged Rs 14 lakh non-compliance demand against the party.

“This amount was recovered by freezing more than Rs 270 crore of the Congress’s bank balance across several accounts,” he said.

Maken said BJP has not left a level playing field for Opposition parties.

“In 2017-18, BJP did not disclose the address of its 1,297 donors—who donated Rs 42 crore — and only mentioned their names.  Also, names of 92 donors are missing in the donors’ list. This is a clear violation but the I-T department has closed its eyes on that violation related to Rs 42 crore,” Maken said.

Responding to a question about US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller’s remark over Congress party’s allegations that tax authorities have frozen some of their bank accounts, Maken said, “We have complete trust in India’s democracy and judicial system. This is our internal matter. Our constitution is capable of resolving our internal matters. We don’t need help from any foreign power.”

Curated For You

CAT 2025 Answer Key LIVE Updates: Response sheet to release ‘shortly’ at iimcat.ac.in

Why IndiGo has been hit so hard by new flight duty time limitation rules, explained

Chennai Rains, Weather Today LIVE Updates: IMD issues yellow alert for tomorrow in three Tamil Nadu districts