Income Tax department slaps Rs 30 crore notice to AAP; Kejriwal says all donations to political party declared illegal

The Income Tax (IT) department on Monday slapped Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with Rs 30.67 crore tax notice for an allegedly massive mismatch in donations it received to fight elections and what it declared.

According to IT department, their investigations show that APP did not put up on website details of donations worth nearly Rs 37 crore.

After receiving the tax notice, Kejriwal wrote on Twitter, “In the history of India, ALL donations to a political party have been declared illegal. All these were accounted for and shown in books of accounts. This is height of political vendetta.”

The IT department also claimed that Arvind Kejriwal’s party did not declare donations amounting to Rs 30 crore it received from overseas supporters before the 2015 Delhi polls to the Election Commission.

In the history of India, ALL donations to a political party have been declared illegal. All these were accounted for and shown in books of accounts. This is height of political vendetta

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) November 27, 2017

Arvind Kejriwal’s party, which on Sunday celebrated five years of formation, is also accused of not disclosing details of 461 donors who contributed over Rs 6 crore for their election campaign.

The IT notice states that the AAP had been given 34 opportunities to explain the mismatch but the party had only tried to mislead the Income Tax probe.

Soon after the IT notice was served to the party, AAP leader Raghav Chaddha tweeted, “The only political party that maintains 100 per cent propriety, transparency and compliance in its funding is being targeted yet again...centre's vendetta comes out as an all-out war on this political toddler called AAP as they declare all our donations illegal."

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AAP Treasurer Deepak Bajpai said, “For the first time each and every donation, even those as low as Rs 10, has been declared taxable. It is a vindictive act and people are well aware why are we being targeted.”

He added, “ The Central govt has institutionalised a mechanism to defame the opposition parties and it is part of that.”