![\"He](\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-133715636,imgsize-582442,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/income-tax-notice.jpg\" "\\"Although")
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSwitching jobs comes with the need for increased vigilance on the income tax front. But what if your Form 16 is delayed and you are unable to file your tax return in time and the Income Tax Department<\/a> imposes a penalty?That\u2019s what happened with Pravesh Aggarwal, a resident of Indrapuram in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Aggarwal changed jobs and earned a salary of Rs 30 lakh; however he failed to file his income tax return by the deadline. The reason was that he had not received his Form 16 from his previous employer in time.What appeared to be a filing lapse eventually turned into a tax penalty of Rs 3.74 lakh. The Income Tax Department took a strict view of the matter, maintaining that had the non-filing not been detected, Aggarwal might not have filed his ITR at all. This, in turn, would have meant that his salary and interest income remained unreported.Aggarwal eventually challenged the matter and, after a prolonged legal battle, succeeded in winning the case before the Delhi bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).<\/p>\n Aggarwal had switched jobs during the financial year 2018-19, in the middle of the year. From his new employment, he earned a salary of Rs 30.22 lakh, according to an ET report. However, during the transition between his old and new jobs, he could not obtain the necessary documents, including Form 16, from his employer before the deadline for filing his ITR.Although the Form 16 was not available to him, Aggarwal\u2019s Form 26AS contained the details of the TDS that had been deducted by his employers. Based on this, he believed that since the relevant income and TDS were already reflected in Form 26AS, there would be no issue if he did not separately file an ITR. He therefore did not submit his return within the prescribed time.The matter resurfaced later when the Income Tax Department reopened Aggarwal\u2019s tax assessment under Section 147 after passing an order under Section 148A(d) on April 19, 2023.Following the tax notice, Aggarwal filed his ITR on May 8, 2023. In the return submitted in response to the notice, he declared a total income of Rs 30.22 lakh.The Income Tax Assessing Officer (AO) examined this return and subsequently initiated penalty proceedings against Aggarwal for under-reporting of income, on the ground that he had not filed an ITR earlier.During the penalty proceedings, Aggarwal explained that he had acted under a bona fide belief that his tax liability had already been discharged because both his employers had deducted TDS from his salary. On that basis, he believed there was no further requirement for him to file an ITR.The Income Tax Assessing Officer, however, did not accept Aggarwal\u2019s explanation. The AO imposed a penalty of Rs 3.74 lakh, which was 50% of the tax on the concealed income, on the grounds that Aggarwal had under-reported his income and had failed to file his original ITR within the deadline.Aggarwal challenged the penalty before the Commissioner of Appeals (CIT A), but his arguments were rejected there as well. The Rs 3.74 lakh penalty was consequently confirmed, prompting Aggarwal to take the matter to ITAT Delhi.<\/p>\n Anubhav Sharma, Judicial Member, and Manish Agarwal, Accountant Member, of ITAT Delhi observed that a genuine salaried employee should not face a disproportionate penalty for failing to file an ITR, particularly when the employer has already deducted TDS from the salary and there has been no under-reporting of income.Representing the Income Tax Department, Jitendra Singh backed the decisions taken by the lower authorities. He argued that if a notice under Section 148 had not been served on Aggarwal, the income in question would have escaped taxation. According to Singh, Aggarwal would then not have filed his ITR and the salary and interest income would not have been reported.Aggarwal ultimately secured relief from ITAT Delhi on May 13, 2026.Anubhav Sharma explained that sub-section 2 of Section 270A provides that \u2018under-reporting income\u2019 arises when a taxpayer declares an amount that is lower than the actual income earned.In Aggarwal\u2019s case, however, the income that he eventually reported and declared was accepted by the Income Tax Department. The ITAT Delhi therefore observed that the matter could not be treated as one where a taxpayer had disclosed an amount lower than his actual income.The Tribunal also noted that Aggarwal was acting under a bona fide belief that the tax payable on his salary had already been deducted at source by his respective employers. The TDS details were also appearing in Form 26AS, leading him to believe that he had complied with his tax obligation by disclosing the income earned during the year.According to ITAT Delhi, Aggarwal had a bona fide and genuine belief that there had been neither any misrepresentation nor suppression of facts. The income was duly reflected in Form No. 26AS on the Income Tax Department\u2019s portal, and the Department was already aware of those details. In these circumstances, the Tribunal held that there was no question of under-reporting of income.The Tribunal further explained that Section 270A(2) can result in under-reporting of income only where the income reassessed is higher than the income that had previously been determined and assessed.In this case, at least prima facie, the income assessed under Section 148 was not higher than the income declared by Aggarwal. ITAT Delhi therefore held that the case could not be considered one involving misrepresentation either.Based on these findings, ITAT Delhi directed that the Rs 3.74 lakh penalty imposed under Section 270A be deleted. It also allowed all the grounds of appeal raised by Aggarwal.<\/div>\n Although the Form 16 was not available to him, Aggarwal\u2019s Form 26AS contained the details of the TDS that had been deducted. Switching jobs comes with the need for increased vigilance on the income tax front. But what if your Form 16 is delayed and you are unable to file your tax return in time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-31"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-small":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-small-tall":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-small-square":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-small-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-medium":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-medium-masonry":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-large":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg","blogsy-wide":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Although the Form 16 was not available to him, Aggarwal\u2019s Form 26AS contained the details of the TDS that had been deducted. Switching jobs comes with the need for increased vigilance on the income tax front. But what if your Form 16 is delayed and you are unable to file your tax return in time […]","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":1,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":5,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg",400,225,false],"medium":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg",300,169,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/income-tax-notice.jpg",150,84,false]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/author\/admin"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8709732a479614e7a8aa24d3eb1b239f30dc6d90c61464ed495001e7a469d856?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36 \u0b2c\u0b3f\u0b26\u0b47\u0b36<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/koshalsambada.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why did the Income Tax Department send the penalty tax notice?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Why ITAT Delhi ruled in the taxpayer\u2019s favour<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"