Income Tax notice row: ‘Modi govt wants to strangulate opposition financially’, Congress attacks BJP

The Congress on Friday sharply reacted to the Income Tax Department's notice of ₹1,700 crore to the grand old party, saying the officials are being used as the ‘gundas’ of the ruling party. 

AICC general secretary in-charge KC Venugopal accused the Narendra Modi-led government of trying to “financially strangulate” the opposition parties during the election time. 

“The Narendra Modi government is doing this with the specific purpose of bankrupting the Congress party at a time when we are facing elections,” the Congress leader told media persons as quoted by PTI. 

He pointed out that the political parties are usually exempted from paying taxes, but this penalty is in the name of delay in filing returns. 

Following this, the Congress announced a nationwide protest on March 30 against the BJP's alleged exploitation of central agencies to target the opposition parties. 

“They are attacking the opposition parties using the government mechanism. This is a move to butcher democracy. The BJP too has not paid any returns, but they were safe from IT Department notices,” he said. 

Income Tax Department has issued demand notice of Rs1,700 crore to the Indian National Congress on Friday. The fresh demand notice is for assessment years 2017-18 to 2020-21 and includes penalty and interest. The central agency has earlier frozen the Congress bank accounts in its income tax returns filing for 2018-19.

“As per the notice, the Congress has been asked to pay ₹1,076.35 crore as penalty and ₹692 as interest,” Venugopal added as quoted by PTI. 

The Delhi High Court on Thursday rejected the Congress' petitions challenging the initiation of tax reassessment proceedings against it for four years by tax authorities. The present matter pertained to the assessment years 2017 to 2021.

On March 8, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) dismissed the plea moved by the Congress Party which sought a stay against Income Tax Department proceedings of recovery and freezing of their Bank accounts and said the Stay Application is without merit.

(With PTI inputs)