1. Have you received an e-mail or SMS from Income Tax Department on March 29 / 30 March 2021 related to the Income-tax return (ITR) filed for the financial year 2019-20 and missed the response by the due date i.e., 31st March 2021?
2. THE MESSAGE READS LIKE THIS: “The Income Tax Department has received information on financial transactions/activities relating to XXXXX2080X for Financial Year 2019-20? However, as per records available, this information is not in line with the Income Tax Return Filed for AY 2020-21(relating to FY 2019-20).
2.1 The I-T department has asked the taxpayers to either file a revised ITR by March 31 or reply to the query on the compliance portal latest by March 31. The issue is that the deadline to reply was only two days.
3. REASONS FOR NOTICE: There could be multiple reasons for taxpayers receiving such intimation. The prominent ones being non-reporting of FD interest and savings bank account interest in the ITR.
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3.1 This is because TDS is not deducted on Saving Account Interest, hence not reported in form 26AS and you have not considered it in your I tax Return, but it has been reported to the department through other sources/returns.
3.2 The taxpayers who filed their ITR and forgot to mention interest income in their ITR found it difficult to file a revised return within two days. As banks were closed on Holi, many people faced difficulty in collecting interest certificates from their respective banks.
3.3 Those taxpayers who got this SMS from the I-T department but could not take any action on or before March 31 are worried about penal action from the I-T department
3.4 If you are also one of them, do not get panic. However, you should not ignore the notice.
4. ACTION TO BE TAKEN
4.1 The notice should be responded to in the manner the Income-Tax Department prescribes.
4.2 If you agree that tax is less paid, compute the tax payable and pay the same taxes along with interest, as on date.
4.3 Intimate your jurisdictional officer about action taken thru speed post.
5. STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE TO RESPONSE NOTICE – E CAMPAIGN
Step 1: Visit Compliance Portal at https://compliance.insight.gov.in
STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE TO INITIATE ACTION
Step 2: You will get redirected to the e-filling portal. You can also use the URL https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in to access e-filing portal.
Step 3: For registered users, log in using your user ID and password. For new users, click ‘Register Yourself’ and perform the subsequent steps to register with the e-filing portal.
Step 4: Once logged into the e-filing portal, click ‘My Account and then select ‘Compliance Portal’. You will get redirected to the Compliance Portal.
Step 4A You can also click ‘Compliance’ on the toolbar and then select ‘Compliance Portal’.
Step 5 You will get re directed to the compliance portal
Step 6 Click on “Financial Year” under the Significant Transactions/Non- Filing of Return/High-Risk Transactions option (Whichever is applicable).
Step 7: The information is available for submission of response. To view details of the information, you need to click on the “>” button to view information detail.
Step 7A Bulk Facility
To submit the information in bulk, you need to select multiple transactions at a time and also, you can select only two feedback options to submit the response in bulk: –
Step 8: You will also be able to submit an online response by selecting among any of these options:
(i) Information is correct,
(ii) Information is not fully correct,
(iii) Information related to another person/year,
(iv) Information is duplicate/included in other displayed information, and
(v) Information is denied.
6. There would be no need to visit any Income Tax office, as the response has to be submitted online.
7. PAYMENT OF TAXES: if you accepted the information, compute the tax payable on the amount, pay along with interest thru self-assessment challan, and send the payment details to your jurisdictional officer thru speed post.
8. This will avoid the compounding of interest and penalty in the future.
