e-portal for filing Petition of tax evasion/Benami Properties/Foreign Undisclosed Assets

CBDT launches e-portal for filing complaints/Petition of tax evasion/Benami Properties/Foreign Undisclosed Assets

The Central Board of Direct Taxes has launched an automated dedicated e-portal on the e-filing website of the Department to receive and process complaints of tax evasion, foreign undisclosed assets as well as complaints regarding benami properties.

Procedure to file Tax Evasion Petition

The Tax Evasion Petition can be filed through the link provided on the e-filing website of the Department https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/ under the head “File complaint of tax evasion/undisclosed foreign asset/ benami property”.

The complainants are required to choose whether:

(i) If they want to file a simple complaint regarding tax evasion, foreign undisclosed income/asset, benami property without claim for reward or

(ii) If they want to become informer and claim reward 

The facility allows for filing of complaints by persons who are existing PAN/Aadhaar holders as well as for persons having no PAN /Aadhaar.

After an OTP based validation process (mobile and/or email), the complainant can file complaints in respect of violations of :

(i) the Income- tax Act, 1961,
(ii) Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Assets and Income) Imposition of Tax Act, 1961 and
(iii) Prevention of Benami Transactions Act (as amended)

There are three separate forms designed for the above purpose”

(i) Form-1 Complaint regarding Tax Evasion
(ii) Form-2 Complaint regarding Undisclosed Foreign Assets, and
(iii) Form-3 Complaint regarding Benami Properties/Transactions

Upon successful filing of the complaint, the Department will allot a unique number to each complaint and the complainant would be able to view the status of the complaint on the Department’s website.

• Ambiguous penalty notices cannot be foundation of imposition of any penalty – SC
• Assessment itself is not a process to penalise assessee for earning undisclosed income – High Court
• Actual use of asset is not the sole test for allowability of depreciation – ITAT
• Object of assessment proceedings is not to find empirically correct solution on every fact issue – HC
• Penalty u/s 270A deleted as assessee filed revised computation during scrutiny