The AO made massive ex-parte additions under Section 69A after the assessee failed to respond to notices sent to an incorrect email ID of his deceased former CA. The ITAT upheld the CIT(A)’s decision to set aside the ex-parte assessment for fresh adjudication, utilizing the Finance Act 2024 amendment to Section 251, which grants the CIT(A) the power to remit Section 144 best judgment assessments.
The ITAT set aside a massive unexplained investment addition made on a joint bank account, ruling that the CIT(A) failed to consider vital documentary evidence submitted by the assessee. The case is remanded to the AO for fresh verification of the documents, which claim the deposits were company business, not personal income.
ITAT Lucknow held that rectification under Section 154 cannot be invoked when a trust deed does not specify beneficiaries’ shares. Since the shares were indeterminate, taxation at the maximum marginal rate under Section 164 was rightly applied.
Hyderabad ITAT ruled that the Rs.153C notice against VPR Mining for AY 2018-19 was void ab initio. The court held that without incriminating material pertaining to the relevant year, an assessment based solely on external GST data, independent of the original search and seizure, is invalid.
The ITAT confirmed the deletion of a ₹72 crore addition made under Section 143(1) by the CPC, which resulted from a tax auditor’s inadvertent reporting error in Form 3CD (using the opening instead of the closing inventory). The ruling established that the CIT(A) can directly verify evidence and grant relief for such genuine clerical mistakes without remanding the case to the AO.
The Tribunal deleted the unexplained investment (Section 69) and cash interest (Section 69A) additions, emphasizing that unsigned, vague slips and digital data, where the parties were not confronted and no independent verification was done, have no evidentiary value in search assessment law. This aligns with Supreme Court rulings on the invalidity of additions based on non-speaking loose sheets.
The ITAT deleted a Rs. 23.30 Lakh protective addition made in the firm’s hands under Section 68, as the corresponding cash deposit had already been offered to tax by the partners. The Tribunal ruled that once the real recipient (partners) has paid tax, the protective assessment on the firm becomes redundant and cannot lead to double taxation.
The Tribunal directed the AO to treat the sales tax subsidy as a capital receipt, finding its purpose was to promote industrialization in backward regions, not subsidize production. The ITAT also deleted the Section 14A disallowance, confirming the taxpayer had sufficient own funds.
The issue was whether the AO could make an addition for unexplained share capital and premium without finding any defect in the extensive documentation filed by the taxpayer. The Tribunal emphasized that the AO must make an independent inquiry and bring contrary material; mere suspicion or non-appearance cannot override the legal requirement that the addition must be based on a failure to prove the creditor’s details.
The Tribunal held that an AO cannot treat a return filed in response to a Section 148 notice as non-est while using it as the base for computing the final income. Following High Court precedent, the ITAT confirmed that once the return is taken into account for assessment, the issue of Section 143(2) notice becomes a prerequisite, making the assessment void.
