Waiver or Reduction of Penalty U/s 273A(4) by Principal Commissioner or Commissioner |
Section 273A(4) empowers the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner to waive or reduce any penalty imposable under the Income-tax Act as well as to stay or compound any proceeding for the recovery of penalty.
Initiation to be taken by the taxpayer
For obtaining waiver or reduction or stay or compound any proceeding for the recovery of penalty, the taxpayer has to make an application to the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner.
Conditions for granting relief
Relief under section 273A(4) is granted if following conditions are satisfied :
(1) Levy of penalty will cause genuine hardship on the taxpayer.
(2) The taxpayer has co-operated in any inquiry relating to the assessment or any proceeding for the recovery of any amount due from him.
Previous approval of Chief Commissioner or Director General
If the amount of any penalty or, where such application relates to more than one penalty, the aggregate amount of such penalties exceeds Rs. 1,00,000, no order of reducing or waiving the amount or compounding any proceeding for its recovery under section 273A(4) shall be made by the Principal Commissioner of Commissioner, except with the previous approval of the Principal Chief Commissioner or Chief Commissioner or Principal Director General or Director General, as the case may be.
Time-limit for passing order under section 273A(4)
The Principal Commissioner or Commissioner, as the case may be, shall pass order, either accepting or rejecting assessee’s application to reduce or waive penalty, within a period of 12 months from the end of the month in which application is received.
However, order shall be passed on or before May 31, 2017 in case of application pending as on June 1, 2016.
Further, no order rejecting the application shall be passed unless the assessee has been given an opportunity of being heard.
Finality of the order
Every order made under section 273A shall be final and shall not be called into question by any Court or any other authority.
No relief if waiver claimed earlier
Section 273A(1) empowers the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner to grant waiver or reduction from penalty levied under section 270A (i.e., penalty for under-reporting and misreporting of income) or under section 271(1)(c) (i.e., penalty for concealment of particulars of income or furnishing inaccurate particulars of income).
As per section 273A(3), where an order has been made under section 273A(1) in favour of any person, whether such order relates to one or more years, he shall not be entitled to any relief under section 273A in relation to any other year at any time after the making of such order.
Thus, if a person has claimed relief under section 273A(1) at any time, then he cannot claim relief under section 273A [i.e., section 273A(1) as well as section 273A(4)] thereafter.
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