Now Reading: ITAT Delhi upholds Rs 1.86 lakh penalty for hidden UAE assets
-
01
ITAT Delhi upholds Rs 1.86 lakh penalty for hidden UAE assets
The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has upheld a Rs 1.86 lakh penalty against taxpayer Ashok Shankar for failing to disclose a foreign bank account and interest in a…
The Story in Brief
The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal has upheld a Rs 1.86 lakh penalty against taxpayer Ashok Shankar for failing to disclose a foreign bank account and interest in a UAE company in his income tax returns, livemint.com reports. The penalty was imposed under the Black Money Act after UAE authorities shared information under the India-UAE tax treaty, revealing Shankar's Emirates NBD account in Dubai and his directorship in Santech International FZE.
Shankar claimed he had forgotten about the account and that it was closed in 2017. The tribunal rejected his explanation for lack of evidence. It also dismissed his argument that the penalty should be discretionary, ruling that the facts justified the levy. The relevant assessment year was 2020-21, when the information reached the assessing officer in April 2019.
The Indian Opinion
Some may sympathise with a taxpayer who forgot an old foreign account, but the law demands full disclosure irrespective of memory. The Black Money Act is designed to crack down on hidden overseas assets, and the ITAT correctly applied it. The taxpayer's claim that the word 'may' makes the penalty optional was rightly rejected, this was not a technical oversight but a failure to disclose for years. The real test now is whether more taxpayers will proactively declare foreign assets before the information reaches the taxman.
Source: livemint.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
