Politics News / Congress got notice of Rs 1700 crore from Income Tax, this is the matter

Politics News: Congress party has suffered a big blow from the Income Tax Department. Income Tax Department has sent a recovery notice of Rs 1700 crore to the Congress Party. This notice has been sent for the year 2017-18 to 2020-21. In this notice sent by the IT Department, along with the tax, penalty and interest have also been added. Earlier on Thursday, the Delhi High Court also refused to give relief to the Congress. This notice was sent after that. Congress had filed a petition in the Delhi High Court opposing the sending of notices for collecting taxes from 2017-18 to 2020-21.

This is the matter

In fact, on Thursday, Delhi High Court had rejected Congress's petition against the Income Tax Department. Earlier, Congress had also filed a petition regarding recovery of tax from 2014-15 to 2016-17, which was also rejected by the court. The new petition was also rejected on the same old grounds.

The court had said in the previous order that Congress adopted the petition route when the last date of tax assessment came near. The court had also said that prima facie it appears that the Income Tax Department has collected solid evidence against the Congress. Along with this, Congress did not get any relief on the old petition also.

It is also being told that apart from 2014-15 to 2020-21, it is now waiting for tax assessment from 2021-22 to 2023-24. This assessment can be issued after March 31, 2024. After this, overall the party will have the burden of tax assessment for 10 years.

Violated the rules

It is noteworthy that earlier the Income Tax Department had recovered ₹ 135 crore from the accounts of Congress. This recovery from Congress was made for 2018-19. In fact, Congress had submitted its papers a month after the last date of filing income tax for the year and had also violated the rules under which it would have been exempted from paying income tax.

Congress's income tax documents this year had shown that it received ₹14 lakh in cash as donations. This is against the rules. The rule is that no party can accept donations of more than ₹ 2000 in cash. Congress violated this rule due to which it did not get tax exemption. The party had also filed a petition against this.

Congress's allegation

Congress has accused these notices and recovery action of the Income Tax Department that the government is seizing their accounts before the elections. Congress has alleged that the party does not have funds even to contest elections, that is why it is not able to spend money on campaigning etc. However, the Income Tax Department says that it is merely making its recovery and has not frozen any accounts. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on this matter that Congress is making it an election issue.