Taxpayers receiving notices for claiming deductions create confusion

New Delhi: While the last date for electronically verifying income tax returns lapsed on August 31, several taxpayers have complained of receiving notices for claiming deductions for which they are not even eligible.

Several instances have been reported of taxpayers contacting their tax professionals or chartered accountants to respond to notices received under Section 143 (1), asking them to give a reason why they claimed deductions under Section 80 P.

However, the problem here is that these deductions are not meant for individuals but for cooperative societies.

The notices received by taxpayers said that deductions under Section 80 P cannot be claimed or allowed for assessment year 2023-24.

Due to this, individual taxpayers have been asked to respond to the notices within the timeline of 15 days.

Tax professionals say that this is an additional burden for both individuals and tax professionals, for which no fees can be claimed by them (tax professionals) as it looks like a system-generated error.

Also if the taxpayers don’t respond to these notices, then there could be automatic adjustment of these deductions against any refund.

In addition to this, tax payers could also be asked to pay tax along with interest, despite this being a system generated error, they said.