The Curious Case of 5th and 6th proviso to Section 149(1) of Income Tax Act 1961

Adv (CA) Abhishek Garg, Adv Yash Gaiha & Adv Ranesh Mankotia – [2023] 150 taxmann.com 132 (Article)

Recently, various tax payers/assesses were in receipt of the show cause notices under section 148A(b) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (“the Act”) for Assessment Year 2019-20 wherein the income alleged to have escaped assessment was less than 50 lacs.

Interestingly, various such show cause notices under section 148A(b) of the Act were issued at the fag end (like dated 27 March 2023, 28 March 2023 and so on) of the time prescribed under section 149 (1)(a) of the Act to issue a reassessment notice under section 148 of the Act i.e. 3 years. Such notices provided more than 7 days to the tax payers to reply to the said notice and effectively the orders under section 148A(d) and consequent reassessment notice under section 148 of the Act were issued around second week of April 2023, admittedly beyond the prescribed time period of 3 years which expired on 31 March 2023.

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