ITAT Mumbai: Form 16 or 26 AS Important for Claiming TDS Credit

The Mumbai bench of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal ( ITAT ) demanded re-adjudication, commenting that either Form 26AS or Form 16 is crucial to claim the Tax Deducted at Source ( TDS ) credit.

The taxpayer claimed TDS amounting to Rs.10,45,439 was deducted by the employer i.e. M/s. Nirmal Lifestyle Ltd. from salary u/s 192 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which was not permitted by the Assessing Officer ( AO ), especially on the foundation that the taxpayer’s employer has not declared the TDS in Form No.26AS.

The taxpayer said that the taxpayer’s employer did not furnish Form No.16. The taxpayer stated that the taxpayer’s employer is a regular defaulter and in another incidence, another employee does not deposit the TDS amount deducted u/s 192 of the Income Tax Act, which consequence towards filing a case which went up to the Bench of the Tribunal at Pune and in the case of Chandrashekhar Sadashiv Potphode v. DCIT in the Tribunal allotted the relief by permitting the TDS credit, especially on the reason that the only option to the Revenue is to recover the TDS amount not deposited via the employer who has deducted TDS and not from the taxpayer under the provisions of Section 205 of the Income Tax Act.

The two-member bench of the tribunal comprising S. Rifafur Rahman ( Accountant member ) and Narendar Kumar Choudhry ( Judicial member ) witnessed that the taxpayer via filing TDS working which is initiated by somebody however it is neither on proper letterhead nor there is a name of the person who signed such document and even otherwise, the taxpayer loses to file any document, wherefrom it could show that the taxpayer has obtained any particular amount of salary on which TDS has been deducted and consequently, in absence of pertinent documents, the Commissioner correctly ruled that the AO has not made any mistake in non-granting of credit of TDS, as, the taxpayer does not provide any salary slip or Form No.16.

It witnessed that in the absence of the pertinent documents, the problem stayed to be adjudicated properly and in its correct perspective, and hence for the proper and just decision towards the matter for the conclusion of the justice, we consider the same precise to remand the instant matter for filing the commissioner regarding the decision afresh on the problem under consideration via furnishing a reasonable chance to the taxpayer or producing the pertinent documents like appointment letter, salary slips or Form No.16 or bank statements or any other corroborative evidence/documents to substantiate its claim. As per that for statistical purposes, the petition of the taxpayer is permitted.