The Congress party has alleged that it received two more notices from the Income Tax Department on Friday night, a day after it received ₹1,800 crore notice. According to an India Today report, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, “Two more notices were sent to us last night”. He reiterated that Congress was a target of “tax terrorism”. The party claimed that the I-T department slapped a notice, asking them to pay around ₹1,823 crore on Friday.
According to Congress leaders, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is also accused of “serious violation” for which it should be penalised to the tune of ₹4,600 crore. However, the income tax sleuths are only targeting the opposition, the Congress alleged.
‘Modi govt want to strangulate opposition financially’, Congress attacks BJP
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.
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 slapped with ₹1,700 crore demand notice by I-T dept
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 ₹54 crore has been imposed by the I-T authorities for the year 1993-94, ₹182 crore for 2016-17, ₹179 crore for 2017-18, ₹918 crore for 2018-19 and ₹480 crore for 2019-20.
“Efforts are being made to financially cripple the Congress, but we are not going to be cowed down,” Congress’ Jairam Ramesh said.
Tax department could demand ₹500 crore from Congress in reassessment order
While the Congress leaders claimed that it was a tax-exempted party, sources to PTI news agency said the party lost that privilege in 2018-19 due to extensive use of cash in the electoral process.
The source told the agency that during the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the I-T department launched a search operation and found extensive use of cash. Thereafter, assessments were reopened for seven years (AY 2014-15 to AY 2020-21).
Following the assessment, demand was raised in 2021 and communications to pay demand were sent many times. Later recovery proceedings under Section 226(3) of the Act were undertaken, the source added.
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Published: 30 Mar 2024, 01:09 PM IST