BMA s.59

BMA s.59 — the law in short

What the courts have decided on section BMA s.59, in one screen. Read this first; open an entry when you need the facts, the reasoning and the source.

• Union of India v Gautam Khaitan Supreme CourtHelps departmentNo later treatment found
  The department says the Black Money Act applies to my foreign account from July 2015. Is that retrospective?
  No. Notifying 1 July 2015 as the commencement date of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act 2015 did not make the Act retrospective. The date was advanced only so the one-time compliance window in s.59 could operate, and tax under s.3 is still charged only from assessment year 2016-17 onwards.
• Sanjay Vijay Shinde v DGIT High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  A prosecution has been sanctioned against me under the Black Money Act. Can I get anticipatory bail?
  On these facts, yes. The Madhya Pradesh High Court granted anticipatory bail to a taxpayer facing prosecution under ss.50 and 51 of the Black Money Act in respect of an undeclared Singapore bank account holding USD 6,856,092.67, on a personal bond of Rs 5,00,000 with one surety, subject to surrender of his passport and availability for interrogation. The Court gave no reasons for the grant.
• Arvind Balkrishna Gogte v Income Tax Department High CourtHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  My foreign company was struck off and the bank account closed years before the Black Money Act commenced. Can they still prosecute me for it?
  Not on this authority. The Karnataka High Court quashed eight complaints under ss.50 and 52 of the Black Money Act where the foreign company had been struck off and the Singapore account closed in 2010, holding that the deeming fiction in s.72(c) cannot be stretched to found criminal liability for conduct that preceded the Act. Article 20(1) bars conviction under a law not actually in force when the act was done, and a statutory deeming that the asset was acquired in the year of the s.10 notice does not supply that.
• Prateek Chitkara v Union of India High CourtCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  There is a look-out circular against me while my Black Money Act appeal is pending. Can I get it lifted, and does the appeal need money deposited first?
  The look-out circular was not quashed but was converted into an intimation of arrival and departure under clause 6(I) of the Office Memorandum dated 22 February 2021, on conditions including security over property, the Court holding that this was not a case detrimental to the economic interest of the country as there was no allegation of siphoning of public funds and no criminal proceedings had been initiated despite the demand. On the appeal, the Court recorded that no amount had been deposited under Rule 6(4) of the Black Money Rules, which requires the tax with penalty and interest on the liability not objected to by the assessee to be paid before an appeal under s.15(1) is admitted.
• Anila Rasiklal Mehta v Union of India High CourtCuts both waysNo later treatment found
  The department got my foreign account details under an exchange-of-information agreement, so s.71(d)(iii) shut me out of the s.59 declaration window. Does Gautam Khaitan still answer me?
  The Bombay High Court said that point was not decided in Gautam Khaitan and left it open. On the notice of motion it refused a stay of the s.10(1) notices, but directed that no coercive measures be taken while the department proceeds, and kept the Article 14 and Article 20 challenge for the hearing of the writ petition itself. Nothing was decided on the merits.
• Ajay Kumar Patel v Addl. CIT ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The s.10 notice does not say which year it relates to, and my foreign account was inherited and already put in a revised return. Can the assessment stand?
  No, on both counts. A notice under s.10(1) that omits the relevant financial year, coupled with delay in initiating the proceedings, goes to the root of jurisdiction, and s.81 of the Black Money Act, being in pari materia with s.292B of the Income-tax Act, protects only clerical or technical mistakes and not jurisdictional infirmities. Separately, an inherited foreign deposit whose source is explained and which was disclosed in revised returns and by a letter to the jurisdictional officer before the s.10(1) notice is not an undisclosed asset within s.2(11), and historic interest of earlier years cannot be charged under the Black Money Act at all.
• Chintan Navnitlal Parikh v PDIT (Inv) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  I declared my interest in a foreign discretionary trust under s.59 and the assessment accepted it. Can the Principal Director now revise that order?
  Not where the point was examined at the assessment stage. The Tribunal set aside a revision under s.23 of the Black Money Act, holding that an order passed after due enquiry and verification is neither erroneous nor prejudicial to the interest of the Revenue within s.23(2) and cannot be called prejudicial under s.23(9). It also records the valuation route for a beneficiary's interest in a foreign trust: the trust's assets are valued as an association of persons under Rule 3(1)(g), with the shares held by the trust valued first under Rule 3(1)(c).
• Vijendra Kedia v DDIT (Inv) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The officer valued my foreign shareholding under the rule meant for bank accounts. Does that stand, and was I even an 'assessee' under the Act as a not ordinarily resident?
  Neither stands. Rule 3(1)(e) of the Black Money Rules determines the value of a bank account and cannot be applied to shares, which fall under Rule 3(1)(c). Separately, the definition of 'assessee' in s.2(2) as it stood when the s.10(1) notice was issued in February 2018 covered only a resident, and the assessee being not ordinarily resident in the relevant financial year, the notice and the assessment were held to be without jurisdiction and were quashed.
• Anandi Kaushik Laijawala v DDIT (Inv.) ITATHelps taxpayerNo later treatment found
  The officer issued several s.10 notices over two years and assessed one of the years. Does it matter which year the notice falls in?
  It is decisive. Where the asset was acquired before the Act commenced and no declaration was made under s.59, s.72(c) deems it to have been acquired in the year in which the s.10 notice is issued, so the assessment can only be for the assessment year that follows that year. A notice issued in April 2018 could therefore support an assessment only for assessment year 2019-20, and the Mumbai Bench quashed assessments made for assessment year 2018-19. A defective first notice could not be saved by a corrigendum or by s.81.
• Statutory position — ss.41 and 43 of the Black Money Act and s.72(c): the penalty of three times the tax computed under s.10, the Rs 10 lakh penalty for not reporting a foreign asset in the return with its twenty lakh rupee proviso from 1 October 2024, and the deemed year of acquisition for an asset acquired before commencement CBDT Circulars & InstructionsCuts both ways
  My client's Black Money assessment covers a foreign account opened in 2009 and not declared under the one-time compliance window. The department has charged tax and a penalty of three times the tax, and says the year is fixed by s.72(c). What do those provisions actually say?
  Section 41 provides that the Assessing Officer may direct that, in a case where tax has been computed under s.10 in respect of undisclosed foreign income and asset, the assessee shall pay by way of penalty, in addition to tax if any payable by him, "a sum equal to three times the tax computed under that section". It is therefore a multiple of the tax computed under s.10, and it follows the s.10 computation — if the computation goes, the base of the penalty goes with it. Section 43 is a different and smaller penalty: where a resident other than not ordinarily resident within s.6(6) of the Income-tax Act has furnished a return under s.139(1), (4) or (5) of that Act and fails to furnish any information, or furnishes inaccurate particulars, in that return relating to any asset (including financial interest in any entity) located outside India held by him as beneficial owner or otherwise, or in respect of which he was a beneficiary, or relating to any income from a source located outside India, the Assessing Officer "may direct that such person shall pay, by way of penalty, a sum of ten lakh rupees". Its proviso, as substituted by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024 with effect from 1 October 2024, reads: "Provided that this section shall not apply in respect of an asset or assets (other than immovable property), where the aggregate value of such asset or assets does not exceed twenty lakh rupees." The footnote on the departmental page records that before that substitution the proviso excluded only "an asset, being one or more bank accounts having an aggregate balance which does not exceed a value equivalent to five hundred thousand rupees at any time during the previous year". Section 72(c), in the removal-of-doubts provision at the end of the declaration chapter, is the hinge of the retrospectivity argument and reads: "where any asset has been acquired or made prior to commencement of this Act, and no declaration in respect of such asset is made under this Chapter, such asset shall be deemed to have been acquired or made in the year in which a notice under section 10 is issued by the Assessing Officer and the provisions of this Act shall apply accordingly".

Listed strongest first: Supreme Court, then High Court, then Tribunal, then CBDT. Nothing here has yet been read in full by a chartered accountant — open an entry to see where it came from.