The Delhi Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has allowed the appeal of Tripoto.com Pvt. Ltd. and directed the Assessing Officer (AO) to re-adjudicate the claim of deduction for the late deposit of employees’ contribution to the Provident Fund (PF) and Employees’ State Insurance (ESI).
The assessee is a company, Tripoto Travel Private Limited, engaged in the business of providing an online platform under the domain name www.tripoto.com to share and discover travel stories and itineraries, and related business opportunities. The assessee submitted their income tax return, revealing a total loss of Rs. 4,35,89.518. The AO discovered throughout the assessment process that the assessee had paid employees’ contributions to PF and ESI totaling Rs. 6,50,936 after the deadline set in the applicable law. He contested it as a result, increasing the assessee’s entire income. Aggrieved by the AO’s decision, the taxpayer appealed before the Commissioner of Income-Tax (Appeals), who maintained it. In the case of Chekmate Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that the due date for depositing PF contributions is the date on which the contribution is paid, not the date on which the challan is generated.
The assessee argued that the AO had not taken into account their written submissions, which claimed that they had timely submitted the PF contributions. It was also contended that the AO had disregarded the Supreme Court’s ruling in the matter of Chekmate Services Pvt. Ltd and claimed that the AO had made his decision on incorrect data. The AO claimed that the assessee had not provided any documentary proof demonstrating that they had made timely PF contribution deposits. The Supreme Court’s ruling in the matter of Chekmate Services Pvt. Ltd. was not relevant to the current case, according to the AO and he additionally claimed that to determine whether PF contributions have been made on time, the date on which the challan is created is relevant. The Tribunal observed that the Assessee’s written representations, which asserted that they had paid the PF payments on time, had not been taken into account by the AO. The bench further observed that the AO had ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in the matter of Chekmate Services Pvt. Ltd and the AO had made his decision on incorrect data.
The Two member Bench of Saktijit Dey (Vice-President) and Girish Agrawal (Accountant member) allowed the assessee’s appeal for statistical purposes and remitted the matter back to the AO for verification of the actual payment dates.
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