The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has deleted a penalty order by observing that the assessee cannot be penalized for the failure of keeping an invoice of a small amount of Agricultural sale proceed as no prudent man could be expected to keep a record of sale proceeds of such small amount.
The Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has deleted a penalty order by observing that the assessee cannot be penalized for the failure of keeping an invoice of a small amount of Agricultural sale proceed as no prudent man could be expected to keep a record of sale proceeds of such small amount.
The department alleged that the onus was on Assessee to show that the amount was held as custodian.
A bench of Shri B.R.R. Kumar (Accountant Member) and Shri Anubhav Sharma (Judicial Member) has observed that“Appreciating the material on record it can be observed that the Tax Authorities have not doubted the assertion of the Assessee that the father in law was resident of Canada or he held land. When this fact is admitted, the Revenue needed to conduct some inquiry and collect material to rebut the claim of the Assessee. Which was not done. However, the ld CIT(A) has discredited the claim for the reason that no evidence whatsoever has been brought which could relate the cash to the agricultural income of the father in law. He failed to appreciate that the deposit relates back to the years 2001-02 and the assessment was initiated in 2015. No prudent man could be expected to keep a record of sale proceeds of such a small amount of Rs 20,000/. The presumption is of the truthfulness of a claim made before an authority when a false claim gives rise to penal action. So, the claim of Assessee that he held source was agricultural income and he held it as custodian deserved to be allowed.”
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