The Chennai Bench of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has treated the cash deposit made during the demonetisation period under Section 69A of the Income Tax Act 1961 on failure to produce the documentary evidence.
The assessee, Chandrakumar had filed her return of income for the assessment year 2017-18 on 29.07.2017 admitting total income and the same was processed under Section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Thereafter, the case was selected for complete scrutiny.
By considering the submissions of the assessee against statutory notices, the Assessing Officer had completed the assessment under Section 143(3) of the Income Tax Act dated 03.12.2019 assessing total income of the assessee, by making addition under Section 69A of the Income Tax Act towards unexplained cash deposit during the course of demonetization period.
Girish Kumar,on behalf of the assessee submitted that besides earning agricultural income and interest income, the assessee had also earned regular business income of TV serial story writing, which was deposited in her bank account not only in current assessment year, but also, various previous years and accepted by the Department in earlier assessment years
P. Sajit Kumar, on behalf of the revenue submitted that the assessee had not produced any documentary evidence for the source of cash deposited during the demonetization period and supported the order.
A Single Bench of V. Durga Rao, (Judicial Member) observed that since the assessee had produced copy of patta and crop adangal of agricultural land owned by her to the extent of 3.91 hectares, the agricultural income earned by the assessee were not in dispute. The department also did not dispute the income earned by way of TV serial story writing for which any documentary evidence could be produced.
Considering this, the Bench partly allowed the appeal directing the Assessing Officer to restrict the disallowance to the extent of ₹.15.00 lakhs and to treat the balance amount of ₹.7,60,000/- as unexplained money under Section 69A of the Income Tax Act.
Subscribe Taxscan Premium to view the JudgmentSupport our journalism by subscribing to Taxscan premium. Follow us on Telegram for quick updates
