Mukesh Ambani family case: I-T department concludes tax proceedings

Assessment order passed under section 10(3) of Black Money Act

The Income-Tax (I-T) Department has closed the proceedings against members of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani’s family under the provisions of Black Money Act, 2015, initiated by the department in 2019 for alleged undisclosed foreign income and assets. 

The matter was time-barred with an end date of March 31. According to the I-T department, the Ambani family had refuted all charges. 

Four separate final assessment orders have been passed under Section 10 (3) of the BM Act in the case relating to Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani and their three children, an official in the know told Business Standard.

Section 10 (3) deals with determination of tax payable by an assessee on undisclosed foreign assets and income. 

The orders were signed and issued in FY2021-22 by Joint Commissioner (Income-Tax) Central Range 8(3), Mumbai. 

For black money matters, where notice under Section 10 had been issued in the financial year 2019-20, the time barring date was set at March 31, 2022, the official said.

The assessment orders are learnt to have highlighted that the details provided by foreign counterparts ‘’cannot be held as sufficient evidence to consider foreign assets to be belonging to the Ambani family’’. Few nations, including Guernsey authorities on behalf of Swiss Bank, had responded to the I-T Department queries, official cited above said. On that basis, assessment orders were issued without any tax additions leading to closure of the case, the official said.

 A detailed e-mail questionnaire sent to RIL on Monday remained unanswered till the time of going to the press. CBDT didn’t respond on the matter. 

 The I-T proceedings had followed an internal noting by a former head of private banking at HSBC, Switzerland. The noting, received in June 2015 in a Foreign Tax and Tax Research (FT &TR) reference made to British Virgin Islands, had alleged that Ambani family members were beneficiaries of certain accounts, according to sources. 

 Subsequently, the tax department had made investigations into the foreign assets of the Ambani family. 

The department had issued a show-cause notice in the case on March 28, 2019.

The tax department had also sought response and legal assistance from several countries including the US, UK and Mauritius on the matter in 2019.

The queries were mainly about Capital Investment Trust, which the I-T department said, was used for the purpose of transferring foreign funds comprising global depository receipts (GDRs) of the value of $400 million to two Indian entities — Reliance Utilities & Power (RUPL) and Reliance Port & Terminal (RPTL), owned by the Ambani family.

According to the I-T department, the Ambani family had refuted all charges in the show-cause notice and had submitted the copy of GDR offer documents on June 7, 2019, for RUPL along with other documents.