Income Tax
Guides
Step-by-step walkthroughs for Indian taxpayers.
96 guides
ITR filing walkthroughs
Filing ITR-1 to ITR-4, screen by screen, for common situations.
How to file ITR-1 as a senior citizen with pension and FD interest (AY 2026-27)
Meet Vikram Bhalla , 67, a retired bank manager living in Sundar Nagar, Delhi. He receives a monthly pension from his former employer (Punjab National Bank) and earns interest on multiple fixed deposits. This article walks Vikram through ITR-1 filing – highlighting the …
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-1 if you live in a rented apartment and pay HRA (AY 2026-27)
Meet Niharika Saluja , 27, a data analyst at Sigma Analytics in Delhi. She rents a one-bedroom apartment in Vasant Vihar for ₹25,000 a month. Her employer pays her ₹2,40,000 a year as House Rent Allowance (HRA). She wants to claim the Section 10(13A) HRA exemption under…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-1 when you switched jobs mid-year (AY 2026-27)
Meet Devansh Bhatnagar , 28, a software engineer in Bengaluru. He worked at Beta Software Solutions from April to August 2025, then moved to Gamma Cloud Services from September 2025 through March 2026. Two employers, two Form 16s, two TDS deductions – one ITR-1 to file.
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-1 with a single salary -- Form 16 import walkthrough (AY 2026-27)
This is the document-import version of the ITR-1 single-salary walkthrough. The cold-start manual-entry version is the companion article . Same person, same income facts, same final tax outcome – just a much faster route to it.
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-1 with a single salary -- manual entry walkthrough (AY 2026-27)
Meet Aaryan Khurana , a 30-year-old software engineer in Gurugram. He earns ₹7,80,000 in gross salary from one employer, has invested ₹1,50,000 in PPF during the year, and earns ₹8,000 in interest from his savings account. This is his first time filing on his own. This …
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-2 after selling a residential property with Sec 54EC bond reinvestment (AY 2026-27)
Meet Meher Talwar , 48, a senior consultant at Vista Media in Mumbai. In September 2025 she sold a Bandra West apartment her late mother left her – held by Meher for 9.5 years. Sale price ₹2.6 crore. Original cost ₹80 lakh. Within six months of the sale she parked ₹50 l…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-2 as a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) -- India-source income only (AY 2026-27)
Meet Aniruddh Mansukhani , 35, an IT consultant who relocated to Dubai 2.5 years ago. He has been in India for just 18 days during FY 2025-26 (visiting parents). Under Section 6 of the Income-tax Act, he qualifies as Non-Resident (NR).
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-2 when you are a director or hold unlisted equity shares (AY 2026-27)
Meet Sahir Bhandari , 41, the Whole-time Director of Stratos Mobility Pvt Ltd, a Gurugram-based mobility startup. He’s also a founder-shareholder, holding 5,000 unlisted equity shares (face value ₹10, issue price ₹100). His salary income is straightforward, but two fact…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-2 with salary plus listed-equity capital gains (AY 2026-27)
Meet Ishan Khurana , 32, a software engineer at Phi Tech Industries in Pune. His employer pays him ₹23.5 lakh a year. On the side, he trades listed equity. During FY 2025-26 he had two material exits:
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-3 after opting out of 44AD with Sec 44AB audit (AY 2026-27)
Meet Suhail Bhalla , 45, who runs a wholesale electronics distribution business out of Karol Bagh, Delhi. He used Section 44AD presumptive in AY 2022-23 (declared 8% on the non-digital portion of turnover) but found the 8% deemed margin didn’t reflect his actual ~5% tra…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-3 as a partner in a firm with remuneration + capital interest (AY 2026-27)
Meet Tanmay Bhatnagar , 36, a partner at Bhatnagar & Associates , a chartered-accountancy firm in Hauz Khas, Delhi. He holds a 30% capital share. During FY 2025-26 the firm:
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-3 for salary plus intraday equity (speculative income) -- AY 2026-27
Meet Prerna Mansukhani , 33, a data analyst at Cipher Analytics in Mumbai. Outside her day job she day-trades equity intraday. FY 2025-26 was a tough trading year – aggregate intraday turnover ₹8 lakh (computed by the absolute-sum method, see Section 3 below), net resul…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-3 with salary + business + capital gains in the surcharge zone (AY 2026-27)
Meet Rohini Khurana , 44, a strategy consultant at Octave Strategy LLP in Gurugram. She also runs a small bilingual content-advisory practice on the side and dabbled in some short-term equity trades during the year. Her total income lands around ₹53 lakh – which puts he…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-3 with salary plus a business P&L (non-presumptive) -- AY 2026-27
Meet Gauri Saluja , 38, who runs a women’s apparel boutique in Indiranagar (Bengaluru). She also draws a part-time consulting salary from a friend’s apparel-tech startup. Her business turnover is ₹80 lakh – below the Section 44AB audit threshold of ₹1 crore – and she has never used presumptive 44AD: she keeps proper books and files ITR-3.
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-4 Sugam under 44AD presumptive scheme (small trader, AY 2026-27)
Meet Yuvraj Saluja , 39, who runs Saluja General Store , a neighbourhood kirana in Hazratganj, Lucknow. Annual turnover ₹70 lakh – well under the ₹2 crore Section 44AD ceiling. He chooses to declare income under the presumptive scheme – 6% on digital receipts, 8% on cas…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-4 Sugam under 44ADA presumptive (freelance professional, AY 2026-27)
Meet Smita Bhatnagar , 36, a freelance UI/UX designer working from Pune for both Indian and foreign clients. Annual gross receipts ₹32 lakh – ₹29 lakh from Indian clients (paid by bank transfer) and ₹3 lakh “other” (one foreign client paid via SWIFT remittance routed th…
7 May 2026
How to file ITR-4 Sugam under 44AE for goods-carriage business (AY 2026-27)
Meet Karan Mansukhani , 47, who owns and operates a small fleet of 6 trucks – 3 heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) at 18 tonnes gross vehicle weight each, and 3 light goods vehicles (LGVs) under 12 tonnes – out of Mundka, Delhi. He plies them on hire / lease across NCR and Har…
7 May 2026
Returns and refunds, step by step
Belated, revised and updated returns, AIS and 26AS, advance tax, e-verification and refunds.
Belated and Revised Returns
The due date for an income-tax return passes, and one of two things has usually happened. The return was never filed, or it was filed and something in it has since turned out to be wrong: a missed interest certificate, a capital gain reported under the wrong head, a ded…
19 Oct 2026
The Updated Return (ITR-U)
The belated and revised return windows close on fixed dates. Income that comes to light after that, such as an interest account never reported, a capital gain left out or a receipt booked in the wrong year, used to have no voluntary route back into the tax computation. …
19 Oct 2026
Reconciling AIS, TIS and Form 26AS
Before a return is filed, the department already holds a picture of the year. It shows salary and the tax deducted from it, bank interest, dividends, share sales, property purchases, foreign remittances and GST turnover. The picture is built from what other people repor…
19 Oct 2026
Advance Tax and Self-Assessment Tax
Income-tax is a tax on the year’s income, but the law does not wait for the year to end before collecting it. Tax deducted at source covers salary and much investment income. For everything else (business profits, capital gains, rent, interest received in full), the tax…
19 Oct 2026
E-Verifying a Return, and What Happens If You Do Not
Uploading a return is not the end of filing it. Until the return is verified, by digital signature, by an electronic verification code or by a signed paper acknowledgement, the department treats it as unfinished. The window for verification is 30 days from upload. A ret…
19 Oct 2026
Income-Tax Refunds: Status, Failure, Reissue and Adjustment
A refund arises when more tax has been paid than is due. That happens through deduction at source, advance tax or self-assessment tax. The return claims the refund, processing determines it, and the bank credit is supposed to follow. In practice there are three places i…
19 Oct 2026
Notices and assessments, step by step
Intimations, defective returns, faceless scrutiny, reassessment, penalties, rectification and demands.
The Intimation under Section 143(1)
Most people who file an income-tax return never meet an Assessing Officer. What they receive instead is an e-mail from the Centralised Processing Centre with a document headed “Intimation under section 143(1)”, and a table in which their own figures sit beside the depar…
19 Oct 2026
Defective Return Notices
A notice that a return is “defective” looks like a request to tidy up a form. The consequence of ignoring it is far more serious. If the defect is not cured in time, the law treats the return as never having been filed at all. Interest, late fee, the loss of carried-for…
19 Oct 2026
Faceless Scrutiny Assessment
A scrutiny assessment no longer means a visit to an income-tax office. It begins with an electronic notice from the National Faceless Assessment Centre, continues through written submissions uploaded to the portal, and ends with an order signed by an officer whose name …
19 Oct 2026
Reassessment: Notices under Sections 148A and 148
A reassessment notice reopens a year the taxpayer thought was closed. The law on reopening has been rewritten three times in five years: by the Finance Act, 2021, by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024, and by the Income-tax Act, 2025. The Supreme Court has had to reconcile t…
19 Oct 2026
Penalty Notices, and Immunity under Section 270AA
An assessment order often ends with a line initiating penalty proceedings, and a separate notice follows. The amounts can be large: half the tax on the addition for under-reporting, twice the tax for misreporting. Yet the same order also opens a door to immunity, if the…
19 Oct 2026
Rectification of Mistakes: Section 154
A TDS credit missed in processing, a deduction disallowed by a computing error, interest charged on the wrong figure: these are the commonest grievances against an intimation or order, and most of them need neither an appeal nor a revised return. Section 154 allows “any…
19 Oct 2026
Responding to an Outstanding Demand
An “outstanding demand” appears on the e-filing dashboard with an amount, an assessment year and a “Pay Now” button. Behind it may be an intimation from processing, an assessment order, a rectification, or a penalty, sometimes for a year the taxpayer has forgotten. Left…
19 Oct 2026
TDS and TCS for deductors
TAN, deducting and depositing, quarterly statements, certificates, lower deduction and TRACES defaults.
TAN, and Who Must Deduct
Most people meet tax deduction at source from the receiving end, as a line on Form 16 or in the annual statement. The difficulty starts on the paying side. A business owner who has hired a contractor, a family buying a flat, or a company paying a foreign consultant has …
19 Oct 2026
Deducting and Depositing TDS
Deducting the tax is only half the obligation. The money then belongs to the Government and has to reach it by a fixed date, on the right challan, under the right section code. Each step has its own consequence if it is missed: interest by the month, a disallowance of t…
19 Oct 2026
Quarterly TDS and TCS Statements
A deposit on its own is anonymous money. It becomes a deductee’s tax credit only when the deductor files a quarterly statement that says whose tax it was, against which payment, and on which challan. A late statement carries a daily fee. A wrong one leaves deductees wit…
19 Oct 2026
TDS Certificates: Form 16 and 16A
Every June, employees ask for their Form 16, and every quarter, contractors and professionals ask for their Form 16A. Both are now issued under new numbers. The certificate is the deductee’s evidence that tax was deducted and paid on his behalf. A certificate the deduct…
19 Oct 2026
Lower or Nil Deduction Certificates
TDS rates are set for the typical payee, not for any particular one. A contractor on thin margins, a company with brought-forward losses, a charitable institution, or a retired person with modest interest can find tax deducted far above the tax it will finally owe, and …
19 Oct 2026
Correction Statements and TRACES Defaults
The usual first sign of a TDS problem is an intimation from the Centralised Processing Cell (TDS) demanding a sum the deductor does not recognise. Sometimes it is a deductee complaining that his credit is missing from the annual statement. Both trace back to the same ca…
19 Oct 2026
Appeals, and the 2025 Act
Appeals to the CIT(A) and the ITAT, stay of demand, the DRP, and what the Income-tax Act 2025 changes.
Appealing to the Commissioner (Appeals): Form 35
An assessment order arrives with a notice of demand, and the clock starts at once. The first appeal is the only stage at which facts can be argued in full before an authority outside the assessing unit, and it is lost by missing a 30-day window or by failing to pay the …
19 Oct 2026
Appealing to the ITAT: Form 36
The Income-tax Appellate Tribunal is the last authority that decides facts. After it, an appeal to the High Court lies only on a substantial question of law. Two things about the Tribunal have changed recently and catch people out. The time limit is no longer “60 days”,…
19 Oct 2026
Stay of Demand Pending Appeal
Filing an appeal does not suspend a demand. Thirty days after the notice of demand is served, interest begins to run. The Assessing Officer may then adjust refunds against the demand or begin recovery, even though the Commissioner (Appeals) may take a year or more to he…
19 Oct 2026
The Dispute Resolution Panel
A non-resident, or a company whose transfer prices have been adjusted, does not receive a final assessment order first. It receives a draft order. It then has 30 days to choose one of two routes. It may accept the draft and keep the ordinary first appeal to the Commissi…
19 Oct 2026
The Income-tax Act, 2025: What Changes from 1 April 2026
Since 1 April 2026 there have been two income-tax Acts in daily use, not one. A notice received in October 2026 may cite section 148A of the 1961 Act or section 281 of the 2025 Act. A return filed in July 2026 was filed under section 139, and the TDS deducted on a payme…
19 Oct 2026
Property and capital gains
TDS when buying property or paying rent, capital gains on a sale, the exemptions, and joint or inherited property.
TDS When Buying Property: Form 26QB (now Form 141)
Most people who buy a flat or a plot never deduct tax from anyone else. Then, at the point of paying the seller, they are told that 1 per cent of the price belongs to the Government, has to be paid within a month, and has to be reported on a form most of them have never…
19 Oct 2026
Buying Property from a Non-Resident
A buyer who deducts 1 per cent on Form 26QB from a seller who turns out to live in Dubai or Singapore has used the wrong provision. The 1 per cent rule applies only to resident sellers. When the seller is a non-resident, the buyer must deduct tax at the full rate on the…
19 Oct 2026
Capital Gains on Selling Property
The tax on a property sale is rarely 12.5 per cent of the difference between the two prices. The law first asks which year the sale falls in, and how long the property was held. It then asks what the price is deemed to be if the stamp authority valued the property highe…
19 Oct 2026
Capital Gains Exemptions: Sections 54, 54F and 54EC, and the Capital Gains Account Scheme
Most sellers of property who pay no capital gains tax owe nothing because they reinvested, not because they made no gain. The law gives three routes: buy or build a house, or buy specified bonds. Each has its own window measured from the date of transfer, its own ceilin…
19 Oct 2026
Joint, Inherited and Gifted Property
Much property in India does not have one owner who bought it with his own money. A flat may be registered in the names of a couple although one spouse paid for it. A house may pass from a parent to three children under a will, or be gifted by a father to a daughter. Eac…
19 Oct 2026
TDS on Rent
Whether a tenant must deduct tax from rent depends on who the tenant is, as much as on how much the rent is. A company renting an office, a doctor renting a clinic and a salaried employee renting a flat can each pay Rs 60,000 a month and still face three different rules…
19 Oct 2026
Non-residents
Residential status, Forms 15CA and 15CB, treaty relief, returns and lower TDS for NRIs, and returning to India.
Residential Status: Resident, RNOR and Non-Resident
Residential status decides what India taxes. A resident is taxed on world income. A person who is “not ordinarily resident” (RNOR) is taxed broadly on Indian income only. A non-resident is taxed only on income received in India or arising here. The status is not a matte…
19 Oct 2026
Paying a Non-Resident: Forms 15CA and 15CB
A bank will not send money abroad for most purposes until it has the payer’s tax declaration. Under the 1961 Rules that declaration is Form 15CA, sometimes backed by a chartered accountant’s Form 15CB. Under the 2026 Rules it is Form No. 145, backed where needed by Form…
19 Oct 2026
Treaty Relief: TRC, Form 10F and Foreign Tax Credit
Double taxation is dealt with from two sides. A non-resident earning in India relies on a tax treaty to cut Indian tax, for example on interest, dividends, royalties or capital gains. To do that, the non-resident needs a tax residency certificate from home and a set of …
19 Oct 2026
NRI Returns, Refunds and Lower TDS
Tax on a non-resident’s Indian income is mostly collected at source, and usually at rates set without regard to the person’s total income. Interest on an NRO account, rent from an Indian flat and the price of a property sold here all reach the non-resident net of tax. W…
19 Oct 2026
Returning to India: RNOR Years and Foreign Assets
A person who comes back to India after years abroad usually brings foreign assets: bank and brokerage accounts, a retirement plan, employer shares, perhaps a flat. For a year or two the return may make little difference to Indian tax, because the person is likely to be …
19 Oct 2026
Charitable trusts and institutions
Registration, 80G approval and donor statements, applying and accumulating income, audit and returns, and cancellation.
Registering a Charitable Trust or Institution
A trust, society or section 8 company that does charitable work is not exempt from income-tax because its work is charitable. It is exempt because it holds a registration, and the registration runs out. Under the present scheme no charity is registered for good. It is r…
19 Oct 2026
80G Approval and Donor Statements (Forms 10BD and 10BE)
A donor’s deduction for a gift to a charity does not depend on the receipt the charity hands over. It depends on two things the donor cannot see: whether the charity holds a current approval, and whether the charity has reported the donation to the Department. Since 202…
19 Oct 2026
Applying and Accumulating a Trust's Income
Registration makes a charity eligible for exemption; it does not make its income exempt. What escapes tax is the income the charity actually spends on its objects in the year, plus a limited amount it is allowed to keep. The rest is taxed, and some of it is taxed at a f…
19 Oct 2026
Trust Audit and the Return (ITR-7)
Most of what a registered charity does to keep its exemption happens once a year, in a fixed order: the books are closed, the accounts are audited, the audit report is filed, and the return is filed after it. The dates are a month apart, and the exemption depends on eac…
19 Oct 2026
Cancellation of Registration and Tax on Accreted Income
When a charity loses its registration, the loss of future exemption is not the main cost. The main cost is a one-time tax, at the maximum marginal rate, on the market value of everything the charity owns less what it owes. The same tax applies if it converts into a non-…
19 Oct 2026
Small business and professionals
Presumptive taxation for business, professionals and transporters, books of account, and the tax audit.
Presumptive Taxation for Small Business (44AD)
A shopkeeper, trader or small manufacturer does not have to build a full profit and loss account to pay income-tax. The law offers a short cut: a fixed slice of turnover is treated as the profit, and the books and audit that would otherwise follow fall away. The short c…
19 Oct 2026
Presumptive Taxation for Professionals (44ADA)
A doctor, architect, designer or software consultant working alone has receipts, a few expenses and no wish to keep double-entry books. Section 44ADA lets such a professional treat half of gross receipts as profit and stop there. The scheme is narrower than it looks. It…
19 Oct 2026
Presumptive Taxation for Transporters (44AE)
A transporter’s real profit depends on things that are hard to record: diesel bought on the road, cash paid to drivers and loaders, tolls, and repairs done between loads. For a small fleet owner the law replaces all of it with a fixed amount for each truck for each mont…
19 Oct 2026
Books of Account: Who Must Keep Them
Many small businesses and professionals keep a bank statement, a bundle of bills and a diary, and assume that is enough. Whether it is depends on two tests in the Act. The first is the kind of work done: certain professions must keep books whatever their size. The secon…
19 Oct 2026
The Tax Audit: Thresholds and Due Dates
A business can have a turnover of Rs 9 crore and need no tax audit. A trader with Rs 60 lakh of sales can need one. The difference lies in four things:
19 Oct 2026
Salaried employees
The regime choice, HRA and Form 12BB, perquisites, two employers in a year, arrears relief, and retirement receipts.
Old or New Regime: The Choice for Employees
Every April an employer asks the same question: old regime or new? The answer given then decides only how much tax the employer deducts each month. The choice that actually fixes the year’s tax is made later, in the return, and a salaried employee can make it afresh eve…
21 Oct 2026
HRA Exemption and Form 12BB
The house rent allowance on a salary slip is rarely the amount that escapes tax. The exemption is the lowest of three figures. One of them depends on the city the employee lives in, and the list of cities that earn the higher rate changed on 1 April 2026. The exemption …
21 Oct 2026
Perquisites and Form 12BA
A company flat, a car with a driver, a low-interest loan, meal cards, a festival gift or shares under an employee stock option plan are all salary, even though no cash changes hands. The tax depends on a value the law fixes, not on what the benefit is worth to the emplo…
21 Oct 2026
Changing Jobs: Two Employers in One Year
An employee who changes jobs in the middle of a year usually ends it with two Form 16s and a tax bill. Neither employer did anything wrong. Each deducted tax as if it were the only employer. Each gave the full standard deduction and started from the bottom of the slab t…
21 Oct 2026
Relief for Salary Arrears: Form 10E
A pay revision granted with effect from an earlier date, a bonus held back for two years, or family pension released after a long delay all arrive in one year’s salary. Arrears are taxed in the year they are received, so the lump sum can push that year’s income into a h…
21 Oct 2026
Gratuity, Leave Encashment and Retirement Receipts
When employment ends, the last salary slip can carry more than a year’s pay: gratuity, encashment of accumulated leave, perhaps a voluntary retirement package or retrenchment compensation. Each is salary, and each has its own formula for the part that escapes tax. The f…
21 Oct 2026
Crypto and virtual digital assets
The 30 per cent tax, TDS on transfers, Schedule VDA and the AIS, and gifts, airdrops, mining and staking.
Tax on Crypto and Other Virtual Digital Assets
A person who sells bitcoin at a profit, and another token at a loss in the same year, usually expects to pay tax on the net gain. The Act does not allow it. The profit is taxed at a flat 30 per cent. The loss is ignored: it cannot be set off against the profit on the ot…
21 Oct 2026
TDS on Crypto Transfers
Most crypto is bought on an exchange, and most buyers never think of themselves as deductors. The law makes them one. Whoever pays a resident for a virtual digital asset must deduct 1 per cent of the price as tax. If the price is paid in another token, the payer must ma…
21 Oct 2026
Reporting Crypto: Schedule VDA and the AIS
Many crypto holders file their returns on the assumption that the department knows only what the holder chooses to tell it. That is not quite right. Every deduction of tax on a crypto sale reaches the department through the deductor’s statement, and from there it goes i…
21 Oct 2026
Crypto Gifts, Airdrops, Mining and Staking
Not every token is bought. Some arrive as a gift from a friend or a parent. Some are dropped into a wallet by a project. Some are produced by mining or earned by staking. The tax questions are the same each time: is the receipt itself income, and if so under which provi…
21 Oct 2026
Senior citizens and pensioners
Exemption limits and deductions, no return at 75-plus, Form 15H, and pension, commuted pension and family pension.
Income Tax for Senior Citizens: The Basics
A person who turns sixty is told that the tax law now treats them differently: a higher exemption limit, a larger deduction for interest, more for health insurance, and no advance tax. Most of that is true, but only under the old tax regime. The new regime, which applie…
21 Oct 2026
No Return at 75-Plus: Section 194P
A pensioner in their late seventies may draw a pension and keep a few fixed deposits, all in the same bank. Every year they have had to file an income-tax return for income that the bank already reports in full. Since 2021 the law has offered a way out. The bank compute…
21 Oct 2026
Form 15H for Senior Citizens
A retired person whose total tax works out to nil still finds tax deducted from fixed deposit interest. The bank deducts once interest crosses its threshold, whatever the depositor’s overall position. The money comes back only through a return and a refund, months later…
21 Oct 2026
Pension, Commuted Pension and Family Pension
A monthly pension, a lump sum for commuting part of it, a family pension paid to a widow, and money drawn against a house under a reverse mortgage all look like retirement income. The tax law treats each one differently. Pension is salary. A commuted lump sum may be who…
21 Oct 2026
House property and home loans
Let-out and self-occupied houses, home-loan interest and the Rs 2 lakh cap, pre-construction interest, joint loans, and the first-home deductions.
House Property Income: Let-Out and Self-Occupied
A family that owns one flat and lives in it pays no tax on it, however valuable it is. A family that owns three flats, lives in one, keeps one for visiting parents and lets the third, is taxed on two of them, including one that earns nothing. The difference lies in how …
26 Oct 2026
Home-Loan Interest: Section 24(b) and the Rs 2 Lakh Cap
Most borrowers know the figure of Rs 2 lakh. Fewer know that it applies only to a house the owner lives in, that it falls to Rs 30,000 if the house is not finished within five years, that it needs a certificate from the lender, and that it disappears altogether for a sa…
26 Oct 2026
Interest Before Possession: The Pre-Construction Period
A buyer of a flat under construction starts paying interest on the first disbursement and may wait three or four years for the keys. No deduction is available in those years, because there is no house yet whose income can be computed. The interest is not lost. It is col…
26 Oct 2026
Joint Owners and Joint Home Loans
Banks often ask for a spouse or parent as co-applicant, and builders often register flats in two or three names. The tax position does not follow the loan papers. Each co-owner is taxed separately on his or her share of the house. Each can claim interest only on a loan …
26 Oct 2026
First-Home Deductions: Sections 80EE and 80EEA
Two deductions for first-time home buyers still come up in returns, years after their windows closed. Section 80EE gives up to Rs 50,000 a year of interest for loans sanctioned in 2016-17. Section 80EEA gives up to Rs 1,50,000 a year for loans sanctioned between April 2…
26 Oct 2026
Deductions
Section 80C, NPS, health insurance, education-loan interest, donations under 80G, and rent without HRA.
Section 80C: What Qualifies and What to Keep
Most people know section 80C as “the Rs 1.5 lakh deduction”. The difficulty lies in the detail. The Rs 1.5 lakh is shared with two other provisions. Some items count only up to a fraction of the sum assured. Others are taken back if a policy lapses or a house is sold to…
26 Oct 2026
NPS: Sections 80CCD(1), (1B) and (2)
The National Pension System carries three separate deductions, and they behave differently. One sits inside the Rs 1.5 lakh shared with section 80C. One is an extra Rs 50,000 on top. The third, for the employer’s contribution, has its own percentage cap and is the only …
26 Oct 2026
Health Insurance and Medical Costs: Section 80D
A family paying for health cover usually pays for two groups: its own household and the parents. Section 80D treats them as two separate pockets, each with its own limit. The limit depends on whether the person insured is a senior citizen, not on the age of the person p…
26 Oct 2026
Education-Loan Interest: Section 80E
An education loan is often taken in a parent’s name and repaid by the student. Or it comes from a lender that is not a bank. Or repayment starts years after the course begins. Each of these decides whether the interest is deductible, and for how long. Section 80E has no…
26 Oct 2026
Donations: Section 80G and Form 10BE
A donor who has a stamped receipt from a charity naturally expects the deduction to follow. Often it does not, or not in full. The rate may be 50 per cent rather than 100. The amount may be cut down to a tenth of income. A cash gift above Rs 2,000 counts for nothing. An…
26 Oct 2026
Rent Without HRA: Section 80GG
A salaried employee who receives house rent allowance has an exemption for rent. A freelancer, a consultant, a shopkeeper or an employee whose pay has no rent element has no allowance to exempt. For them, section 80GG gives a deduction for rent paid. It is a small deduc…
26 Oct 2026
Hindu undivided families
Forming an HUF, its PAN, return and regime choice, gifts and clubbing, and partition.
Forming an HUF: Deed, PAN and Bank Account
A man marries, signs a “deed of declaration” before a notary, applies for a PAN in the family’s name, opens a bank account, and believes that an HUF now exists. The paperwork gives the family a tax identity. It does not create the family, and it does not decide whose in…
26 Oct 2026
The HUF's Return and the Regime Choice
An HUF’s return looks like an individual’s, and that is where the mistakes begin. The simplest form, ITR-1, is not open to it. The section 87A rebate that makes the new regime nil-tax for many individuals up to Rs 12 lakh is not available to it at all. The return must b…
26 Oct 2026
Gifts to an HUF and the Clubbing Rules
The commonest plan for a new HUF is for the karta to gift it money and let the HUF invest it, so that the interest is taxed in a second set of slabs. Half of the plan works. The gift is not taxed in the HUF’s hands, because it comes from a member. But the interest is ta…
26 Oct 2026
Partition of an HUF
A family divides. The brothers sign a deed, each takes his share, and each starts filing his own return. Under Hindu law the family has partitioned. Under the Income-tax Act it may not have. The Act keeps assessing the HUF as a family until the Assessing Officer records…
26 Oct 2026