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2023 (7) TMI 1389

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.... subscribed to shares of the assessee the source being receipt of share capital from other companies, which was already held as bogus receipt and added in the hands of M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. 2. Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case, Ld. CIT (A) is justified without going into merits of the case and deleting the addition u/s. 68 of the I.T. Act, 1961 of Rs. 19,14,50,500/- ignoring the facts that creditworthiness of both the applicants companies M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd. could not be proven as both the companies without having any business activities have received share premium from other companies and in turn subscribed to shares of the assessee company at a premium who is the ultimate beneficiary. 3. Whether on the facts and circumstances of the case, the CIT (A) erred in law in ignoring the observations of the Hon'ble Apex Court in case of NRA Iron & Steel P Ltd 103 Taxmann.com 48, as the of inquiry and analysis made by the AO established that assessee has failed to prove identity, creditworthiness and genuineness of the transaction. 4. Whether on facts of the case and in law Ld. CIT (A) e....

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....bank statement, copy of ITR, details of jurisdictional AO and its contact no. M/s Seaview Agencies Pvt Ltd also submitted the requisitioned details on 09-02-2015. The learned AO duly acknowledged the replies filed by these share applicant companies. However, since the directors of these companies could not comply with the summons, the learned AO totally ignored the replies filed by these share applicant companies. He added the entire share capital raised by the assessee of Rs.19.14 cr u/s 68 of the Act holding as under:- "Under this circumstances following conclusion is being drawn in respect of the share allotment. 1. The assessee company entered into a sham transaction with the investor to introduce the unaccounted income in form of share application/allotment. 2. The assessee company did not have any regular business transaction or regular acquaintance with the investor. 3. The investor has no reason to invest such huge amount in the business of the assessee. 4. The investor has no business transaction with the assessee company in past or future except this one time entry. 5. Assessee cannot withstand the cross examination be....

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....tween the assessee and this share applicant, the same could have been added by the Department in the hands of this party. Under the circumstances, investments made in the shares of the assessee company in assessment year 2012-13 (current year) cannot be questioned, as the creditworthiness of M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd. has been established. Based on these statements and findings, the ld. CIT(A) was satisfied that the alleged share capital and share premium having been given through banking channels and the identity and creditworthiness are not in doubt and the transactions are genuine. Since the ld. CIT(A) was satisfied with all the ingredients of Section 68 of the Act, i.e., identity, creditworthiness and genuineness of the transactions, therefore, no addition was required to be made u/s 68 of the Act. 4. Aggrieved the revenue is now in appeal before the Tribunal with regard to the impugned addition of Rs. 19,14,50,000/-, made under section 68 of the Act. 5. The ld. D/R, submitted that the assessee company had entered into a sham transaction with the investor to introduce the unaccounted income in form of share application/allotment. He further submitted that, the assess....

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....sing officer u/s 68 of the Act. We notice that the assessing officer when called for the details from the respective share applicants, namely, M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. and M/s Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd., for the sum of Rs.10,52,00,000/- and Rs.8,62,50,000/-, received against the issue of equity capital during the year, both the share applicants of replied to the notice under section 133(6) of the Act and have filed complete details including bank statements, income tax returns, audited balance sheets, confirmation of accounts etc.. It was also submitted that the alleged share applicants are part of the assessee's group. However, when the summons under section 131 of the Act were not complied by the directors of the assessee company, the impugned additions were made under section 68 of the Act. Thereafter when the assessee preferred appeal before the ld. CIT(A), filing complete details and also stating that the source of source of the alleged sum is duly proved with the fact that both the alleged share applicants have received equity share capital and share premium in the preceding years and those years have been assessed to tax and even addition has been made in the hands of ....

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....ns. Now coming to the identity and creditworthiness of the two shareholders, it is observed that their identities are not in doubt. These two concerns are companies having common Directors with the assessee company and they have been regularly filing their returns of income. Appellant has submitted assessment order for M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. for assessment year 2009-10. Similarly, appellant has also submitted the assessment orders in the case of M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd. for AY: 2011-12 and 2012-13. This shows that both these companies have their separate existence and these have been verified independently by their respective AOS Regarding creditworthiness of the two parties, it is notice that M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. had received share capital of Rs. 1,4,80,00,000/- in AY: 2009-10 and in scrutiny order u/s 144/263/143(3)/147 dated 12.03.2015, entire receipt of share capital has been added in the hands of M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt Ltd. Further, perusal of the Balance-sheet of M/s. Honesty Dealers Pvt. Ltd. as on 31.03.2012 shows that major chunk of the share capital received in AY: 2009-10 has been invested in the shares of the assessee company in AY: 2012-13. T....

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.... would have informed the AO for necessary remedial measures, as has been done in assessment year 2011-12 and assessment year 2012-13. Thus, the Balance-sheet of M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt Ltd. cannot be questioned without any adverse evidence. There is nothing on record to suggest that the share capital raised by M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd. in assessment year 2009- 10 was not genuine. Under the circumstances, investments made in the shares of the assessee company in assessment year 2012-13 (current year) cannot be questioned, as the creditworthiness of M/s. Seaview Agencies Pvt. Ltd. has been established. All the investments in the share capital of the assessee company have come through banking channels. The identities and creditworthiness of the investors are not in any doubt and the transactions are genuine. Thus, all the three ingredients of section 68, they are identity, creditworthiness and genuineness of transactions, gets established. Under the circumstances, there is no case for any addition u/s.68 of the Act. Hence, in view of the above discussion, AO is directed to delete the addition of Rs.19,14,50,000/-." 8. On going through the above findings as well as ....

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....equity share capital during the financial year2008-09 and it has been assessed to tax u/s 143(3)/147 of the Act for AYs 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2014-15. Even for AY 2012-13, though the case of M/s Seaview Agencies Pvt Ltd., was selected for the limited scrutiny for examining the unaccounted income of Rs.20,00,000/-and for this purpose all the details of M/s Seaview Agencies Pvt Ltd. including audited balance sheet and details of share capital were filed before the AO but except for the addition of Rs.20,00,000/- which was found to be income escaped from assessment, no other addition was made in the assessment order dated 11/12/2018. This proves that the source of funds utilised for making the alleged investment in equity capital of the assessee company was available with M/s Seaview Agencies Pvt Ltd., from AY 2009-10 onwards and that fund has been rotated but it was always available for investment and during the year under consideration part of that fund has been utilised for making investment in the equity capital. 11.1. At this juncture we also notice that the assessee company is having a huge turnover and for financial year 2012-13, the same is amounting to Rs.145.38 Crores and ....

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.... office address of the company, vii. Audited accounts for the year, viii. Relevant Bank Statement for the year, ix. Form 18 in support of registered office address of these companies. 11. Thereafter, summons were issued to the Directors of the share subscriber companies as well as the Directors of the assessee company which were duly served upon the respective persons and the details as called for were filed which included the following: i. Photo Identity and Address Proof, ii. Narration of all debit and credit entries in relevant Bank statements, iii. Copies of all relevant ROC returns, iv. Sources of funds and utilisation of funds, v. Evidence of creditworthiness along with Income Tax Returns filed and vi. Copies of Audited Accounts and Tax Audit Report for the relevant AY. 12. We further, notice that ld. AO has not pointed out any defect and not questioned the correctness of any of the documents filed by the assessee company, share subscriber companies as well as the Directors. The only ground for making the addition is that the Directors of the assessee company as well as the inve....

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....relevant extract: "Merely because summons issued to some of the creditors could not be served or they failed to attend before the Assessing Officer, cannot be a ground to treat the loans taken by the assessee from those creditors as non-genuine in view of the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Orissa Corporation (1986) 159 ITR 78. In the said decision the Supreme Court has observed that when the assessee furnishes names and addresses of the alleged creditors and the GIR numbers, the burden shifts to the Department to establish the Revenue's case and in order to sustain the addition the Revenue has to pursue the enquiry and to establish the lack of creditworthiness and mere non- compliance of summons issued by the Assessing Officer under section 131, by the alleged creditors will not be sufficient to draw and adverse inference against the assessee. in the case of six creditors who appeared before the Assessing Officer and whose statements were recorded by the Assessing Officer, they have admitted having advanced loans to the assessee by account payee cheques and in case the Assessing Officer was not satisfied with the cash amount deposited by those....

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....ted in [2020] 117 taxmann.com (Kolkata - Trib.) pronounced on 29-05-2020 where the Hon'ble jurisdictional ITAT held that: "30. To sum up section 68 of the Act provides that if any sum found credited in the year in respect of which the assessee fails to explain the nature and source, it shall be assessed as its undisclosed income. In the facts of the present case, both the nature & source of the share application received was fully explained by the assessee. The assessee had discharged its onus to prove the identity, creditworthiness and genuineness of the share applicants. the PAN details, bank account statements, audited financial statements and Income Tax acknowledgments were placed on AO's record, including that of the directors and share holders of share subscribing entities as discussed supra. Accordingly all the three conditions as required u/s. 68 of the Act i.e. the identity, creditworthiness and genuineness of the transaction was placed before the AO and the onus shifted to AO to disprove the materials placed before him. Without doing so, the addition made by the AO and confirmed by Ld. CIT(A) are based on conjectures and surmises, so their impugned action can....

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....having more than sufficient share capital and reserve and surplus fund for giving share application money. Even otherwise ld. AO has not made the addition for charging of higher share premium and has made the addition of unexplained cash credit but still charging of share premium is a commercial decision and the same can be challenged only with sufficient documentary evidence. It thus brings to a conclusion that since the assessee filed complete details of identity and creditworthiness of the share subscribers and genuineness of the transaction before ld. AO, the onus shifted to ld. AO to disprove the material placed before him and without doing so the additions made by ld. AO are based on conjectures and surmises and the impugned additions cannot be justified and therefore, the impugned action of ld. AO cannot be held to be justified. 19. Our view is further supported by following judicial pronouncements: "i) CIT vs. Gagandeep Infrastructure (P) Ltd. 80 taxmann.com 272 (Bombay) wherein it was held by High Court that the proviso to section 68 of the Act has been introduced by the Finance Act 2012 with effect from 1st April, 2013. Thus it would be effective only fr....

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.... was routing of unaccounted money of assessee in the form of subscription to share capital. However, in the assessments made the A.Os had not brought on record any material or evidence to substantiate such finding. Accordingly, on appeal the appellate authorities had deleted the additions made u/s 68 of the Act. iv) CIT vs. Orissa Corpn (P) Ltd. 159 ITR 78 where the Court held that "In this case the assessee had given the names and addresses of the alleged creditors. It was in the knowledge of the Revenue that the said creditors were income-tax assessees. Their index number was in the file of the Revenue. The Revenue, apart from issuing notices under section 131 at the instance of the assessee, did not pursue the matter further. The Revenue did not examine the source of income of the said alleged creditors to find out whether they were credit-worthy or were such who could advance the alleged loans. There was no effort made to pursue the so called alleged creditors. In those circumstances, the assessee could not do any further. In the premises, if the Tribunal came to the conclusion that the assessee had discharged the burden that lay on him then it could not be said that s....

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....sessee submits the explanation concerning the cash credit, the Assessing Officer should consider it objectively before he decides to accept or reject it. Where the assessee furnishes full details regarding the creditors, it is up to the Department to pursue the matter further to locate those creditors and examine their creditworthiness. While drawing the inference, it cannot be assumed in the absence of any material that there have been some illegalities in the assessee's transaction. Held, dismissing the appeal, that the allegations against the assessee were in respect of thirteen transactions. The Assessing Officer issued a show-cause notice only in respect of one of the lenders. The assessee responded to the showcause notice and submitted the reply. The documents annexed to the reply were classified under three categories namely: to establish the identity of the lender, to prove the genuineness of the transactions and to establish the creditworthiness of the lender. The Assessing Officer had brushed aside these documents and in a very casual manner had stated that merely filing the permanent account number details, and balance sheet did not absolve the assessee from his responsi....