E-rickshaw driver in UP gets ₹3.5 crore tax notice

AGRA: A 40-year-old e-rickshaw driver in Mathura claimed that he received a notice from the income tax department directing him to pay tax of Rs 3.47 crore for his annual turnover of Rs 43.44 crore in the 2018-19 financial year. Pratap Singh lodged a police complaint on Sunday, but no FIR has been lodged yet.
City SP MP Singh told TOI that police found a Delhi-based firm is registered against Pratap Singh’s PAN. An FIR will be lodged on the basis of evidence gathered during further probe, he said.
In his complaint, Pratap Singh said someone might have stolen his identity. “I’ve been driving an e-rickshaw for past four years and earn Rs 400-500 a day, which is barely sufficient to feed five family members. I can’t even think of such an amount,” he said.
The e-rickshaw driver, Pratap Singh, told TOI that said he had received a call from the income tax department on October 19 asking him to appear in its office. “When I reached there, they served me the tax notice of Rs 3.47 crore,” he stated in the complaint.
When he told I-T department officials about his work profile, they advised him to lodge a police complaint as someone had taken a GST number on his name to run a business. The annual turnover of the business was just over Rs 43.4 crore in 2018-19, and on the basis of it, the tax amount of nearly Rs 3.5 crore was initiated against the given PAN number, which was registered in Pratap Singh’s name.
Pratap, a resident of Bakalpur village, said he went to a Jan Suvidha Kendra in March 2018 to get a PAN card made. He was told he would get it after a month. When he didn’t receive it, he contacted the centre. Later, he received a coloured photocopy of the PAN card from a man named Sanjay Singh.
According to the assessment order issued by the income tax department, “Information was received on Insight portal under high risk no-filer case wherein it has been shown that the assessee reported a turnover of Rs 43.44 crore in GSTR-1. However, the assessed tax was not filed in his ITR within the due date of filing of ITR.”