The Delhi Large Court on Thursday dominated that there was no obligation on the legal heir to inform the tax office about the loss of life of a taxpayer.

“This Court is of the view that in the absence of a statutory provision it is hard to cast a obligation upon the legal representatives to intimate the factum of loss of life of an assessee to the money-tax office,” the court dominated.

It reported there may possibly just after all be circumstances where by legal representatives would be estranged from the deceased assessee or the deceased assessee may possibly have bequeathed their whole prosperity to a charity.

“Consequently, no matter if the PAN file was current or not or no matter if the office was manufactured aware by the legal representatives or not is irrelevant,” the court reported.

The court passed an order in a situation similar to the tax office issuing a detect to a person in March, 2019, pertaining to some unexplained money not stated in the return. The person in query had died in December 2018. Subsequently, a showcause detect was also served on the deceased as to why penalty should not be levied on him.

Upon acquiring that the assessee was lifeless, the examining officer passed an order in November 2019, imposing a penalty upon the deceased-assessee through his legal heir for non-compliance of notices issued to the assessee.

The court quashed the notices and all the subsequent orders of the examining officer.

Kapil Rana, founder and chairman, HostBooks Ltd, reported: “The legal heirs can be a celebration to the evaluation method where by the evaluation has already started off or the legal heir by his own accord agrees to come to be a celebration to the evaluation.”

Naveen Wadhwa, tax qualified at Taxmann, cautioned that legal representatives should furnish return of money if the assessee died before submitting it. “If these types of a return is not furnished, it may invite detect from the money-tax office. Having said that, these types of a detect has to be issued in the title of the legal agent, not in the title of the lifeless person,” he reported.