TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2015 (1) TMI 1522
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....4]. While the date on which such information was received in India is not clear from material before us, as the statement of the assessee was recorded, in respect of the information so received, on 12th January 2006 and 7th February 2006, evidently this information must have been received prior to 12th January 2006. The assessee had received a sum of UK GBP 3,95,400 and US $ 65,000, during the calendar year 2003, from Aviation Spares International Limited, and this receipt, till the time statement of the assessee was not so recorded on the information received under EoI arrangements, was not disclosed by the assessee in his income tax returns. Shortly after the recording of this statement and on 31st January 2006, the assessee revised his income tax return for the assessment year 2004-05 and offered to tax additional income of Rs 38,56,768 and Rs 1,29,54,082. This additional income of Rs 1,68,10,850 was shown as 'miscellaneous receipts' in the revised income tax return. The income tax return so filed by the assessee was accepted and there were no other issues with respect to the same. 3. The matter, however, did not rest there. 4. "On 17th March 2009", as noted by the Assessing O....
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....extile Processors Vs Union of India [(2007) 295 ITR 244], in support of the proposition that the penalty is imposable in a situation in which there is an concealment of income, such a fact of concealment would be sufficient to sustain the penalty. The Assessing Officer was of the view that assessee had concealed the income by not offering it to tax in the original income, and, as such, penalty was leviable. He thus proceeded to impose the penalty of Rs 14,68,448 which was quantified at one hundred percent of the tax sought to be avoided by so concealing the income. Aggrieved, assessee carried the matter in appeal before the CIT(A) but without any success. Learned CIT(A) held that "a consistent opinion has been expressed by the higher judiciary that blame attached to the assessee with reference to the original return cannot be avoided by filing a revised return after concealment was detected" and that "since the appellant has disclosed the income of Rs 38,56,768 when it was detected by the (income tax) department, the penalty under section 271(1)(c) has rightly been levied by the AO". The assessee is not satisfied with the stand so taken by the CIT(A) as well, and is in further appe....
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....sment year 2003-04. As to what should be done when in respect of the same set of material facts permeating in different assessment years, an Assessing Officer drops concealment penalty proceedings for one assessment year and goes ahead to impose the same penalty for another assessment year, we find guidance from the decision of a coordinate bench in the case of Orient Press Limited Vs JCIT [(2006) 99 TTJ 1091] which has, speaking through one of us, observed as follows: It is difficult to understand as to how can Revenue defend imposition of penalties for asst. yrs. 1993-94 and 1994-95, when, on the materially similar set of facts, no penalty is imposed for the asst. yr. 1995-96. The dropping of penalty proceedings for the asst. yr. 1995- 96 is a conscious act by the AO as evident from the specific order dropping the penalty proceedings for that year. During the course of hearing before us, we did ask the Departmental Representative to explain this contradiction in the stand but he was not able to explain the same and he made a vague statement to the effect that the facts of that year may be different. This is unacceptable. In any case, the material facts, as evident from the docu....
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....ality without any initiation of concealment penalty proceedings. The matter rests there. So far as the assessment proceedings before us are concerned, there is nothing more than an income from the assessment year 2004-05 being shifted to the assessment year 2003- 04. No concealment has come to light as a result of the assessment proceedings that we are in seisin of, and, therefore, the issue of concealment of an income, which was evident in the revised return filed for 2004-05 and which was filed on 31.1.2006, is not relevant now. Viewed thus, such a change in the assessment year of taxability, particularly when the assessee could not have disclosed the related income in the relevant assessment year, and, for that reason, the assessee had disclosed the same income in the next available assessment year in which disclosure could have been made, cannot be visited with penalty proceedings under section 271(1)(c). All that we need to examine in the present case, so far as the concealment penalty in respect of income which has been shifted to tax in this assessment year, is whether or not the assessee has a bonafide explanation in respect of not offering this income in the present assess....