Guwahati:

Not paying tax to the government is denying benefits to the poor, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday, attacking the Congress.

Mr Sarma was reacting to the Congress stating that it has received fresh notices from the I-T Department, asking it to pay Rs 1,823.08 crore.

“If the Congress is not paying the tax then this means that they are against welfare activities. They are against the poor, against the downtrodden,” he said.

“The money collected as tax goes to the hospitals, schools and colleges, and so the government needs tax. Tax is not terror and the two are two different words,” he added.

#WATCH | Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma says, “Somebody denying tax to the govt is denying benefit to the poor…Tax money goes to the public welfare. If Congress is not paying the taxes, it means they are against the welfare activities, poor and the… pic.twitter.com/raHx5D9Lnu

— ANI (@ANI) March 29, 2024

The Congress also accused the ruling BJP of indulging in “tax terrorism” to financially cripple the opposition party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

“Tax money is a benevolent thing because this goes for public welfare. The notice to Congress is, therefore, not tax terrorism but it is tax compliance,” Mr Sarma said.

Referring to the Congress demonstrations against tax notices, he said the party stages protests every day.

“I suggest that they go and campaign for elections instead of protesting every day,” he added.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The Delhi High Court today dismissed Congress party’s pleas challenging the reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the Income Tax Department.

A bench of Justices Yashwant Varma and Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, while pronouncing the verdict, said, “We dismiss the writ petitions.” A detailed order is awaited.

The high court had reserved its order on March 20 on the pleas filed by the political party against the tax reassessment proceedings initiated against it by the authorities for three successive years: 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17.

The party has contested the reassessment proceedings, claiming they were barred by limitation.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, representing the Congress party, had submitted that tax reassessment proceedings are barred by limitation and the I-T department could have gone back to a maximum of six assessment years.

The I-T department, however, asserted there was no violation of any statutory provision by the tax authority and that as per the material recovered, the “escaped” income by the party is more than Rs 520 crore.

Recently, the high court had refused to interfere with the order of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal declining to stay a notice issued by the Income Tax department to the Congress for recovery of outstanding tax of more than Rs 100 crore.

The assessing officer had raised a tax demand of more than Rs 100 crore for the assessment year 2018-19 when the income was assessed to be more than Rs 199 crore.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)