Business

Ashneer Grover Asks ‘Genuine’ Question To IT Dept, Gets Schooled

September 9, 2023
Bharat Times English News

New Delhi: The Income Tax Department responded to a query put by entreprenuer Ashneer Grover questioning the former’s move regarding obtaining three-year Income Tax Return (ITR) details from start-ups of their shareholders.

Ashneer had questioned the Ministry and asked “How and why will companies have ITR of shareholders!”

Reacting to Ashneer’s post on X (formerly known as Twitter), IT Department stated a number of laws, defending their case on the mciro-blogging site.

“Dear @Ashneer_Grover, Section 68 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act) under which the Assessing Officer (AO) has made the inquiry about creditworthiness of the shareholder/investor, places the initial onus on the assessee-company to prove the following: Identity of the investor, Creditworthiness of the investor and Genuineness of the transaction.”

Listing five points to their tweet, the Ministry said added that this has been the practice as reflected in various tweets in the thread.

Earlier, Ashneer had objected the move while questioning the reason that the ministry had stated: ‘to establish creditworthiness of shareholders’ ?

He had asked: 1) How and why will companies have ITR of shareholders ! 2) Why would a shareholder/individual share their ITR with a private company ?

Ashneer also requested the Finance Ministry to look into the matter.

He also added, “Response padh ke samajh aa gaya ki kitne log India mein ITR nahi bharte hai. ITR mein do party hai – tax payer and IT Dept. Why can’t IT department pull ITR from its own system by punching in PAN. Doosri baat ITR mein income from criminal activities ka koi line item nahi hota ;))”