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Sabra, an elderly daily wage labourer who lives in a Jasrana town slum with her husband Shamsuddin, received a shocking notice from the Income Tax department demanding that she file a return on an alleged income of Rs 4.88 crore for the assessment year 2021-22. This notice was received by her on March 30 of this year.
According to a report by India Today, the incident has left her and her husband in distress as they could not make sense of the notice or why they were being forced to file returns on an amount which was far larger than their original income.
"The income chargeable to tax amounting to Rs 4,88,37,927/- as detailed above has escaped assessment. Therefore, you are being show caused (sic) as to why the provisions of Section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961 may not be invoked in your case," the notice read.
To make matters worse, Sabra, being an illiterate woman, was unable to read the notice, which was written in English. She simply put her thumb impression on the notice after the postman handed it to her. She further clarified that she did not even know what Income Tax is.
“She will now have to follow the correct legal procedure to resolve the matter and must file a reply with her objections within the stipulated time,” said Sanjay Jain, an Income Tax advocate
Furthermore, Jain added that “such notices are often issued by mistake or due to clerical errors. He also suspects it could be a case of Aadhaar number forgery, which needs to be investigated.”
Despite the bizarreness of this situation, this is not a unique occurrence. Karan Kumar, a sanitation worker at the Khair branch of the State Bank of India (SBI), received a notice of 33.88 crore from the Income Tax Department despite earning a monthly salary of just Rs 15,000.