Sanjana Sanjay Arora Vs DDIT (ITAT Mumbai)
The Mumbai Bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) set aside the order confirming a penalty of ₹10 lakh levied under section 43 of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015, in the case of Sanjana Sanjay Arora for AY 2017-18.
The penalty was imposed for alleged non-disclosure of a foreign bank account maintained with Barclays Bank UK PLC in Schedule FA of the return of income. The assessee contended that she had only one primary GBP account and that the EURO and USD accounts were merely add-on, bank-created multi-currency accounts with nil balances. While the peak balance of the GBP account was disclosed, an incorrect account number (USD account) was inadvertently mentioned in Schedule FA.
The Tribunal observed that although the EURO and USD accounts had nil balances, there was no clear evidence on record to conclusively establish that all three accounts were linked and that the non-GBP accounts had no independent existence. In the absence of such clarity, the Tribunal held that the issue required deeper factual verification.
Accordingly, the ITAT set aside the penalty order and restored the matter to the Assessing Officer for de novo adjudication, granting liberty to obtain necessary confirmations directly from the bank through proper channels. The assessee’s appeal was thus allowed for statistical purposes.
FULL TEXT OF THE ORDER OF ITAT MUMBAI
