No I-T scrutiny on cash deposits up to Rs 2.5 lakh by housewives post Demo: ITAT

Cash deposits of up to Rs 25 lakh by housewives post demonetisation will not come under IT scrutiny as the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ITAT has held that such deposits cannot be treated as income of the assesseeRuling on an appeal filed by an individual the Agra bench of ITAT said the order would act as a precedent for all similar casesThe appellant a housewife Uma Agrawal of Gwalior had declared total income of Rs 130810 in her income tax return filed for fiscal 201617 However post demonetisation the assessee deposited the Rs 211500 cash in her bank accountThe case was selected for scrutiny assessment during which the assessee was asked to explain the cash deposit of over Rs 211 lakh The assessee had explained that she had collectedsaved the above sum from her previous saving given by her husband son relatives for herself and her familyThe CIT Appeals did not accept the explanation and confirmed the Assessing officers order treating the cash deposit of Rs 211500 as unexplained money Following this the appellant approached the ITATThe Tribunal after going through all the facts and arguments said we are of the opinion that the amount deposited by the assessee during the demonetisation cannot be treated as income of the assessee Hence the appeal of the assessee is allowedObserving that housewifes contribution in the family is immeasurable the Tribunal said quoting an order by the Supreme Court which mentioned that in India nearly 15985 million women stated that household work was their main occupation compared to only 579 million men as per 2011 CensusWomen all over the country had been accumulating cash that they had saved for themselves from household budgets by haggling with vegetable sellers tailors grocers and assorted tradersYears of stashing in whatever little cash gifts they received from relatives during festival times and years of tucking away the change they found in the pants that they washed every day however suddenly they were left with no option but to deposit the amount in the denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes in the banks on account of Demonetisation scheme 2016 as these notes were no more legal tenders the tribunal addedExempting women who deposited less than Rs 250 lakh during the demonetisation period the ITAT said we may clarify that this decision may be treated as precedent in respect to proceedings arising out of the cash deposit made by the housewives during the demonetisation scheme 2016 only up to the limit of Rs 25 lakhs onlyUsually ITAT ruling is binding on the applicant and the jurisdiction tax officer and is used as reference in similar mattersPost demonetisation in November 2016 the income tax department had in 2017 said no questions will be asked about cash deposits of up to Rs 25 lakh and only those accounts will be probed that do not match the tax returnsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever