Hyderabad High Court asks I-T to relax rules, help doctors avail PMGKY
Physician caught in tax rules.
Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has directed the Income Tax authorities to allow a lady doctor of the city to utilise Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana, by relaxing some of the conditions of the scheme. Dr Indira Ajay moved the High Court seeking to direct the I-T authorities not to prohibit her in any manner from utilisation of the seized cash for the purposes of making deposits under Section 199F of the I-T Act 2016 in RBI bonds under the scheme.
According to the petitioner she deposited Rs 11.18 crore of demonetised currency in three of her bank accounts in December 2016 by showing it as income for 2017-18 and paying of Rs 3.15 crore as advance tax. Dr Indira submitted that after introduction of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana which allows individuals to legalise their unaccounted money, she thought of utilising the scheme.
She brought to the notice of the court when she attempted to utilise the scheme, she realized that there are far too many hurdles to avail it and she now has to borrow Rs 83 lakh and deposit it in the bank to remain eligible to utilise the scheme. While dealing with Dr Indira’s plea, a division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice J. Uma Devi noted the petitioner has a current balance of Rs 7.5 crore after paying advance tax and making other payments and I-T authorities were treating this money as seized currency.
As per the scheme, the doctor has to deposit 30 per cent of the seized currency towards tax and 10 percent as penalty and she has to pay cess that is equivalent to 33 per cent of the money she paid as tax which works out to Rs 5.58 crore. This would leave her with Rs 1.92 crore.
Dr Indira has to keep 25 percent of the seized currency as deposit in RBI Bonds and the money available with banks falls short by Rs 83 lakh to utilise the scheme. The bench directed the I-T officials to treat the seized currency as tax, cess, penalty etc instead of asking her to get all this from outside while seizing her existing cash. The bench directed the petitioner to deposit Rs 83 lakh from outside to complete the RBI bond transaction.