Tax Management India. Com
Law and Practice  :  Digital eBook
Research is most exciting & rewarding


  TMI - Tax Management India. Com
Follow us:
  Facebook   Twitter   Linkedin   Telegram

TMI Blog

Home

2021 (4) TMI 434

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

→ Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

..... 3(1) of the Act. Subsequently, Assessing Officer received information from the Sales Tax Department, Mumbai about the accommodation entries provided by various dealers and assessee was also one of the beneficiary from those dealers. The assessment was reopened U/s. 147 of the Act based on the information received from Sales Tax Department, Mumbai, that the assessee has availed accommodation entries from various dealers who are said to be providing accommodation entries without there being transportation of any goods. In the reassessment proceedings, the assessee was required to prove the genuineness of the purchases made from M/s. Pioneer Enterprises. In response assessee furnished copies of purchase bills and submitted that the purchases made are genuine. Assessee further submitted that the payments are made through account payee cheques as such contended that all the purchases are genuine. However, parties were not produced before the Assessing Officer. 3. Not convinced with the submissions of the assessee the Assessing Officer treated the purchases as non-genuine and he was of the opinion that assessee had obtained only accommodation entries without there being any transporta .....

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

→ Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

..... ries carried out by him independently. The information received from the Sales Tax authorities was only a piece of evidence to initiate in-depth independent investigation on the issue. It is not the case of the appellant that he has maintained a proper stock register. The appellant has not been able to establish one to one relationship/nexus between the purchases and sales. The assessee has not been able to produce the parties from whom purchases have been alleged to have been made. The appellant has also failed to produce corroborative evidence in the form of transportation bills etc to establish that the alleged purchases were actually transported to its premises and entered in the stock register. It is also a fact that the AO has not confronted the assessee with all the information in his possession like statements of the alleged hawala operators. He did not go ahead with money trail of cheques debited in the appellant's bank account towards the alleged purchases though such investigation do not lead to concrete results in the case of hawala dealers and investigators often reach dead end in such cases. It is not the case of the AO that the impugned purchases have conclusivel .....

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

→ Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

..... ied upon. In the circumstances, the correct approach in such transactions would be to estimate the additional benefit or profit earned on these purchases and not to disallow the entire purchases from the aforesaid parties. In my view either the purchases from such parties is over invoiced or the purchases were actually made but not from the parties from which it was claimed to have been made and instead may have been purchased from grey market without proper billing or documentation. 6.3.3 In many judicial pronouncements on the issue, the Courts have taken a consistent view that in case of non-existent parties from which the purchases are shown to have been made, only a part of such purchases can be disallowed, particularly in such cases where the corresponding sales are not doubted. Alternatively the profit embedded in such sales against the alleged bogus purchases should be brought to tax. 6.3.3.1 In the case of CIT-1 Vs Simit P. Sheth, ITA no. 553 of 2012, order dated 16/01/2013, while deciding a similar issue, the Hon'ble High Court of Gujarat has held that: ' We are broadly in agreement with the reasoning adopted ' by the Commissioner (Appeals) wit .....

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

→ Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

..... as natural corollary, not the entire amount covered under such purchase, but the profit element embedded therein would be subject to tax. This was the view of this court in the case of Sanjay Oilcake Industries v. CIT [2009] 316 ITR 274 (Guj). Such decision is also followed by this court in a judgment dated August 16,2011, in Tax Appeal No.679 of 2010 in the case of CIT v. Kishor Amrutlal Patel. In the result, tax appeal is dismissed. (emphasis supplied) 6.3.5 In view of the facts and circumstances of the case and the judicial pronouncements cited above, what can be disallowed or taxed in the instant case, is the excess profit element embedded in such purchases shown to have been made from aforesaid parties. As narrated earlier, the AO in this case has held that various parties from whom the purchases were made by the appellant were found to be bogus, estimations ranging from 12.5% to 25% have been upheld by the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court, depending upon the nature of the business. 6.4.5.1 In a number/series of recent cases involving the scam unearthed by the Sales Tax Dept of Maharashtra whereby the hawala dealers were found to be issuing bogus purchase bills with .....

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

→ Full Text of the Document

X X   X X   Extracts   X X   X X

 

 

 

 

Quick Updates:Latest Updates