Mahesh Tukaram Matkar Vs ITO (ITAT Pune)
Revised Return After Getting Caught Claiming Wrong Deductions – ITAT Pune Upholds 200% Misreporting Penalty u/s 270A
Assessee, an employee of Bosch Ltd., originally filed returns showing income of ₹4.52 lakh for AY 2017-18 after claiming Chapter VI-A deductions of ₹2.35 lakh. The case was reopened u/s 147, during which he filed a revised return admitting total income of ₹8.47 lakh & paid tax of ₹99,262. AO held that the revised return was filed only after detection by the Department & that the earlier claim involved excess deductions of ₹3.20 lakh. He treated this as misreporting of income & levied penalty u/s 270A(9) & (10) equal to 200% of tax on under-reported income (₹1,32,086).
CIT(A)/NFAC upheld the penalty, noting that the assessee’s revised filing came only after departmental detection & not voluntarily.
Before ITAT, no one appeared for the assessee. After examining records, Tribunal held that the act of claiming excess deductions was not a bona fide mistake but a deliberate misstatement to evade tax. The assessee neither offered satisfactory explanation nor corrected his return on his own initiative. The concealment was detected only due to departmental scrutiny, satisfying conditions of misreporting under s.270A(9).
