Law:

Section:

Section 19, read with sections 15B, 18(1)(a) and 18(1)(c), of the Wealth-tax Act, 1957 - Legal representatives - Assessment years 1968-69, 1970-71, 1971-72, 1983-84 and 1984-85 - Whether in order to make legal representative of deceased assessee liable for penalty under section 19(1), it is not enough that penalty proceedings should be initiated during life time of deceased, but it is also necessary that such penalty proceedings must result into penalty orders during his life time - Held, yes FACTS The assessee had furnished the return of wealth for the relevant assessment years during his life time. The Assessing Officer assessed the net wealth of the assessee at the higher figure than declared by him. The Assessing Officer had also initiated penalty proceedings under sections 18(1)(a), 18(1)(c ) and 15B against the assessee. However, before the penalty proceedings could be completed, the assessee expired in the year 1988. Thereafter, the Assessing Officer vide his order dated 29-8-2003, levied penalties under sections 18(1)(a), 18(1)(c) and 15B upon the legal representative of the deceased assessee. On appeals, the Commissioner (Appeals) deleted the penalty holding that since sections 15B and 18 are not included in section 19(3), penalty cannot be levied on the legal representatives of the deceased assessee. On revenue's appeals, the Tribunal confirmed the order of the Commissioner (Appeals). On appeals to the High Court : HELD Section 19 talks of tax of deceased person payable by legal representative. Under sub-section (1) of section 19, the executor, administrator or other legal representative is liable to pay wealth-tax assessed as payable by the deceased, out of the estate of the deceased. The executor, administrator or other legal representative is also liable to pay any sum, which would have been payable by the deceased person under the Act, if he had not died, out of the estate of the deceased person. The pre-requisite of this sub-section is that there should be an assessment and the liability to pay the wealth-tax or any other sum should arise during the life time of the deceased. In the instant case, during the life time of the deceased, the return…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492