Smt. Amritpreet Kaur Gill Vs DCIT/ACIT (ITAT Amritsar)
Summary: The Amritsar Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal disposed of three connected appeals arising from assessments of Smt. Amritpreet Kaur Gill for AYs 2016-17 and 2017-18. In ITA No. 440/Asr/2025 for AY 2016-17, the Tribunal considered three surviving disputes: estimation of profit on undisclosed receipts, the addition of Rs. 3,97,35,772/- based on Annexure A-22, and the Rs. 47,400/- disallowance relating to software expenditure. For the undisclosed receipts, the Assessing Officer had treated Rs. 24,40,609/- as undisclosed sales and applied a 60% profit rate. The Tribunal held that a fair profit percentage should be adopted by considering the assessee’s past results and comparable business circumstances. As no comparable rate had been brought on record, and the disclosed profit rate was about 8.5%, it estimated profit on the disputed receipts at 12% and granted consequential relief. On Annexure A-22, the Tribunal found that the assessee had consistently explained that the document belonged to her husband, Harinder Pal Singh Gill, proprietor of Harry Auto Fuel and Gill Rice Mills. The Department itself had accepted in the husband’s subsequent assessment that the annexure pertained to him. The Tribunal therefore found the contrary treatment in the assessee’s hands inconsistent and a non-application of mind. It also held that the presumption under section 292C was rebuttable and had been rebutted by the assessee through explanations and corroborative material. Further, the impounded document had to be read as a whole; the Revenue could not rely only on receipts while ignoring corresponding outgoings. The Rs. 3,97,35,772/- addition was consequently deleted. On software expenditure of Rs. 1,58,000/-, the Tribunal found the payment to be for standard off-the-shelf software purchased for internal business use, without transfer of copyright or reproduction rights, and held that no TDS was required; the Rs. 47,400/- disallowance was deleted. ITA No. 440/Asr/2025 was therefore partly allowed.
