IT dept serves fresh notice for Rs 1700 crore tax to Congress ahead of polls

The Income Tax (IT) department, on Thursday, March 28, served a fresh notice asking the Congress party to remit Rs 1,700 crore in tax, in addition to an already notified tax payment of Rs 520 crore. The move came after the Delhi High Court dismissed the Congress’ plea against the IT department for re-initiating income tax reassessment proceedings for the years 2017 to 2021. Earlier, on March 25, the court had dismissed three similar pleas of the Congress saying that the party approached the court merely days before the deadline for completing the tax assessment. The last date for the completion of the reassessment is March 31. Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, who is also a candidate for the Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, said that the party will reach out to people across the country on the issue of their "accounts being frozen". “In the next two days, we are going to meet people across the country and tell them what the BJP has done to the Congress party ahead of the polls by using authorities to freeze our accounts,” said Venugopal. “We are being told that even the BJP has not filed mandatory tax returns, but this charge is used by the authorities against our party alone for freezing accounts,” Venugopal added.(With IANS inputs)