By C. N. Vaze, Shailesh Kamdar, Jagdish T. Punjabi, Chartered Accountants
fiogf49gjkf0d
New Page 2
-
2009 TIOL 370 ITAT (Bang.)
D. V. Steel Corporation v.
ITO (TDS)
ITA No. 907/Bang/2008
A.Y. : 2007-08. Date of Order : 27-2-2009
Facts :
The assessee firm filed quarterly statement in Form No. 26Q
for the 4th quarter of financial year 2006-07 without quoting therein PAN of
the deductees. The Assessing Officer was of the view that not quoting PAN of
deductees was contrary to the provisions of S. 139A(5B) of the Act. The AO
issued notice to the assessee asking it to show cause why penalty u/s.272B(1)
should not be levied for not quoting the PAN of the deductees in the
statement. The assessee submitted non-availability of the same to be the
reason for non-furnishing of PAN in the quarterly statement. The AO did not
find this to be a reasonable cause. He levied a penalty of Rs.10,000.
The CIT(A) confirmed the action of the AO.
Aggrieved, the assessee preferred an appeal to the Tribunal
where it was contended that not quoting the PAN was for a reasonable cause
since the asses-see was being asked to do something which was im-possible; it
had no statutory right or power to compel the deductee to furnish the PAN; not
quoting PAN was for no fault on the part of the assessee.
Held :
The Tribunal noted that there is no mechanism at the end of
the assessee to compel the deductee to give its PAN. The Tribunal was of the
view that the facts of the present case are identical to those before the
Ahmedabad Bench of Tribunal in the case of Financial Co-operative Bank Ltd.
where it has been held that since the rules and the provisions of the Act did
not cast an obligation on the manager of a bank to ensure that Form No. 60
filed by the customer was duly filled in, the failure to comply with the
provisions of S. 139A was on the part of the customer of the bank and not on
the part of the bank. The Tribunal following the reasoning of the said
decision of the Ahmedabad Bench directed the AO to delete the penalty.
The
appeal filed by the assessee was allowed.
