The Congress on Saturday received fresh income tax notices worth ₹1,745 crore for the assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17, the party said. With this, the total notice for assessment years 1994-95 and 2017-18 to 2020-21 now stands at ₹3,567 crore.
The fresh notices were issued on Friday evening after the Congress accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being indulged in tax terrorism to financially cripple opposition parties ahead of Lok Sabha elections that are scheduled to take place in seven phases beginning from April 19.
Addressing a press conference on Friday, Congress announced that it had received notices from the Income-Tax department requesting payment of ₹1,823 crore for five years (Assessment Year 1994–95 and AYs 2017–18 to 2020–21).
The party on March 22 had lost a challenge to the I-T department’s search operations in the Delhi High Court. Congress said that these were “time-barred” and a “delayed action”.
With elections around the corner, Congress accused the BJP-led Centre of misusing institutions like the income-tax department, ED, and CBI to subvert democracy.
Congress party President Mallikarjun Kharge asked the Centre why was it using the income tax department as a weapon to harass the principal opposition party. Kharge said a penalty of Rs54 crore has been imposed by the I-T authorities for the years 1993-94, ₹182 crore for 2016-17, ₹179 crore for 2017-18, ₹918 crore for 2018-19 and ₹480 crore for 2019-20.
The left parties – CPI and CPI-M – were also caught up in similar tax nets with the CPI saying it had received a notice from the Income Tax department for using an old PAN card.
The I-T department has sent a tax recovery notice of ₹15.59 crore to the left parties for not declaring a bank account in its tax returns for 2016-17. Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale also claimed he has received 11 I-T notices in the last 72 hours.
(Please check back for more updates)
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Published: 31 Mar 2024, 11:26 AM IST
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