Shiva Shankar Mathur Vs DDIT/ADIT (Inv.) (ITAT Jaipur)
The Jaipur Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) allowed the assessee’s appeal and deleted the penalty imposed under Section 43 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 for non-disclosure of foreign assets in the income tax return. The assessee challenged the order of the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), who had upheld the penalty levied by the Assessing Officer for failure to disclose foreign bank deposits in the return of income for Assessment Year 2019-20.
The assessee, aged 80 years, had worked in the United Kingdom from 1966 to 1994 before returning to India. During his employment abroad, he accumulated deposits in bank accounts in the UK and Germany from income earned while working there. After becoming a tax resident of India in 1994, he continued to earn interest on those deposits and consistently disclosed the interest income in his Indian income tax returns while paying the applicable taxes. According to the assessee, he filed his return in ITR Form 1 (Sahaj) as advised because he had only income from other sources and no business or professional income. He contended that the ITR-1 applicable for Assessment Year 2019-20 neither stated that it was inapplicable to individuals holding foreign assets nor contained any column requiring disclosure of such assets. He also pointed out that later versions of ITR-1 specifically excluded individuals with foreign assets, indicating that the relevant clarification was introduced subsequently. The assessee submitted that the omission resulted from a bona fide belief and lack of awareness rather than deliberate non-compliance.
