The Income Tax department has sent a notice seeking Rs 2.59 lakh as tax to a daily wage labourer in Odisha’s Nabarangpur district for an alleged transaction he made some years ago, IANS reported.
“I have received a notice from the I-T Department, which asked me to pay Rs 2.59 lakh,” Sanadhara Gand, a resident of Purjaribharandi village, told the news agency. “I am clueless. How will I pay the tax amount?”
According to the notice, which he received last month, Gand had deposited Rs 1.47 crore at an ICICI Bank branch in Umerkote in 2013-2014, according to The Times of India. The notice mentioned Gand was a wholesale trader of seasonal goods who did not file his tax returns during 2014-2015, Odisha TV reported.
The Jeypore income tax officer has asked Gand to appear before him on February 10 and show cause why a penalty should not be imposed on him.
“I had received a similar notice two years ago, but did not pay heed to it,” Gand said. “When I received the latest notice, I showed it to some of my friends in the village, who identified it as an income tax notice. I don’t know what to do.”
He alleged that his employer, Pappu Aggarwal, had cheated him and was behind the transaction, according to IANS. “I was working as Aggarwal’s servant for about seven years,” Gand said. “During that time, he asked me for my land patta, which I handed over to him. I do not know what he did with that.”
The Times of India quoted him as saying that an acquaintance cheated him. “At that time, I was working as a labourer at Umerkote,” Gand told the newspaper. “A trader I knew had taken copies of my Aadhaar, voter ID card and other documents. I suspect he might have opened a bank account in my name to carry out the transactions.”
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