The Income Tax officers have no power to issue a notice under section 148 after the unless certain conditions are satisfied. In this article, we shall discuss what these conditions are, and if you could really receive a notice under section 148 of the Income Tax Act.
It may be valid, and there is a simple way to check this. Section 148 of the act specifies if the notice is valid or not:
The provisions of section 148 state that:
Here is an extract of section 151 for your reference:
no notice shall be issued under section 148 by an Assessing Officer, who is below the rank of Joint Commissioner, unless the Joint Commissioner is satisfied, on the reasons recorded by such Assessing Officer, that it is a fit case for the issue of such notice.(3) For the purposes of sub-section (1) and sub-section (2), the Principal Chief Commissioner or the Chief Commissioner or the Principal Commissioner or the Commissioner or the Joint Commissioner, as the case may be, being satisfied on the reasons recorded by the Assessing Officer about fitness of a case for the issue of notice under section 148, need not issue such notice himself.
It basically states that the joint commissioner can authorize the AO to send the notice, he need not issue it himself. Ergo, AO can send you this notice.
No, they can not issue this notice on the grounds of mere suspection, they must have valid grounds before they issue this notice to you.
It depends upon case to case, but usually, the Assessing officer would require some documents from you. These would be:
You would need to file these with the AO in the manner prescribed in your notice. If you want any assistance on the matter, try the "call an expert" feature of the website.
If you have any queries on this matter, feel free to "ask a question" from the left panel of your screen.
Thank You