The Congress has received fresh notices from the Income Tax Department worth Rs 1,745 crore for the assessment years 2014-15 to 2016-17. With the latest notice, the Department has now raised a total demand of Rs 3,567 crore from the party for the assessment years 1994-95 and 2017-18 to 2020-21.
This comes a day after seniorCongress leader Jairam Ramesh announced on Saturday that “two more notices were sent to us last night”, while reiterating that the party was being targeted by “tax terrorism”.
Sources told the PTI news agency that the fresh notices relate to 2014-15 (Rs 663 crore), 2015-16 (around Rs 664 crore) and 2016-17 (around Rs 417 crore).
“The authorities have ended the tax exemption available to political parties and have taxed the party for the entire collection,” the sources added.
They also said the party has been “taxed for ‘third-party entries’ made in diaries seized from some of its leaders by probe agencies during raids”.
On Friday, theCongress said that it received tax notices worth Rs 1,823 crore for the assessment years 2017-18 and 2020-21, a day after theDelhi High Court dismissed four fresh petitions moved by the party, challenging the Income Tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it.
The notice also included penalty and interest.
The four petitions dismissed by the court concerned the assessment years 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21.
