ITAT Remands LTCG Dispute After Senior Citizen Misses Online Notices Due to Lack of Digital Knowledge:

The ITAT Ahmedabad has remanded the case of Hansaben Babubhai Patel to the first appellate authority for fresh adjudication after noting that the senior citizen could not comply with online notices during the appellate proceedings due to a lack of knowledge about digital gadgets.

The present appeal was filed 218 days late from the statutory time limit. Consequently, along with filing the appeal before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), the assessee had also furnished an affidavit explaining the reason for delayed filing. She explained that she is a senior citizen and was not familiar with electronic gadgets. Hence, she could not access the appellate order promptly, which ultimately led to the delay of 218 days in appeal filing.

Hansaben Babubhai Patel (Assessee) had not filed any income tax return (ITR) for the Assessment Year 2018-19. The Assessing Officer (AO) reopened her case based on the information that during the year under consideration, she had purchased immovable property worth Rs 66 lakh; however, she had not paid tax on the capital gain generated from the same.

During the proceedings, the assessee explained she was not the 100% owner of the property; instead, she owned only 50% of it. The assessee also submitted the computation of cost of acquisition to the AO, but the same was rejected, and transfer expenses of Rs 4.65 lakh were disallowed while calculating the Long-Term Capital Gains (LTCG) at Rs 8.20 lakh.

The assessee challenged the AO's decision before the CIT(A), but the appeal was dismissed without adjudicating the grounds on merits because of the assessee's non-compliance with the statutory notices. Thereafter, the assessee subsequently approached the ITAT, requesting another opportunity to present her case. Her authorised representative submitted that the assessee was a senior citizen who depended on her counsel for complying with the notices, and the non-compliance was attributable to the counsel's failure.

The Tribunal, after analysing the facts of the case, noted that the assessee had complied with the AO's notices and submitted her LTCG computation, according to which the capital gains amounted to only Rs 1.72 lakh. The Tribunal held that another opportunity was justified, considering her age and difficulties with online compliance.

Accordingly, the ITAT set aside the order and remanded the matter to the CIT(A) for fresh consideration and directed the assessee to comply with the notices during the proceedings. The appeal was allowed for statistical purposes.