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Filing of 2 year's itr at once: risks

yashsr (CA) (2285 Points)

08 February 2012

Hello,

An indiviual(r for that matter any assessee) can file returns for AY10-11 and AY11-12 as of today. Now, what are the risks in doing so apart from interest u/s 234A and no carry forward of certain losses?

I want to know what are the chances of AO levying penalty u/s 271F of Rs.5000? Obviously this can be done only for AY10-11 in our case and not for AY10-11. Is the AO quite liberal in levying this penalty? Is it that the AO is strict for Companies and Firms but lenient for Individual and HUFs? Does the AO take into consideration whether the assessee's income exceeds maximum amount not chargeable to tax since an Individual/HUF is not mandatorily required to file a return in case it does not exceed the same?

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2 Replies

yashsr (CA) (2285 Points)
Replied 09 February 2012

I'll reframe my question:

Can an AO levy penalty u/s 271F to an individual who has not filed Return for say Accounting Year 2009-10(Assessment Year 2010-11) until 31st March 2011 but filed it in say November 2011 and his income did not increase the maximum amount not chargeable to tax i.e. say it was only Rs.1 lac for the year?

I know a AO usually wouldn't levy in such a small assessee's case but can he legally empowered to?

According to me, the wordings of Sec 271F say that "if a person required to file return u/s 139(1) fails to do so before the end of the Assessment Year.....". So in this case the individual wasn't required to file return u/s 139(1) and its optional for him. But if he does so, can the AO levy it saying something like "ok this person wasn't required to but now that he has filed it I can levy penalty u/s 271F of Rs.5000??????

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(Guest)

Levying of penalty requires some default of compliance of any provision of Income Tax Act on part of assessee. In the above case the assessee was not required to file return in first case hence the question of levying penaly does not arise.

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