What this covers
Representation when the Income Tax Department examines a return — from a processing adjustment or a request for information, through a full scrutiny assessment, to proceedings reopening an earlier year on the basis that income escaped assessment. The work is assembling the record, answering on the facts and the law, and keeping the exchange to the point actually in issue.
Statutory basis
The assessment machinery of the Income-tax Act, 2025 — processing of the return and intimation of adjustments, notice calling for information, scrutiny assessment on notice, assessment on best judgement where a taxpayer does not comply, and reassessment where income is said to have escaped assessment, which includes a stage requiring the taxpayer to be heard before a notice issues. Most of this is now conducted faceless, through the portal. For periods up to 31 March 2026 the corresponding provisions were sections 143, 144 and 147 to 151 of the 1961 Act, with the faceless machinery in section 144B.
Who it applies to
Any taxpayer whose return is picked up, whether an individual with a single mismatch or a company under full scrutiny. Selection is largely driven by data the department already holds — the annual information statement, tax credit records, GST returns, property registrations and reporting by banks and registrars. In practice the cases that go badly are the ones where the taxpayer replied late, replied partially, or replied to a different question from the one asked.
What we do
- 1Read the notice precisely: which provision it is issued under, which tax year it concerns, what it actually asks, and by when.
- 2Check the notice is valid before answering it — the year, the limitation period and the authority, since a defect goes to jurisdiction and is worth raising early rather than at appeal.
- 3Assemble the record from the primary documents, not from the return, and reconcile against whatever third-party data the department is relying on.
- 4Draft a reply that answers each query with the document that proves it, and states the legal position where the issue is one of law.
- 5Seek an adjournment properly where more time is genuinely needed, rather than letting a date pass.
- 6Attend the hearing, personal or through the portal, and put anything said orally on the record in writing afterwards.
- 7Read the order against the submissions, and advise promptly on rectification, appeal or payment — appeal periods are short.
What you receive
- Notice analysis
- What the notice is, whether it is validly issued, and what turns on it.
- Reply filed
- The submission with its annexures, filed and acknowledged on the portal.
- Reconciliations
- The workings tying your books to the department's data.
- Order review
- A written note on the order, the exposure, and the options with their dates.
Documents and information required
The notice and any earlier correspondence · the return, computation and audit report for the year · books, ledgers and bank statements for the period · annual information statement and tax credit statement · documents for the specific transactions queried · earlier orders for the same or related years · your position and correspondence on any issue previously settled.
Key dates
Every stage runs on a limitation period — for issuing a notice, for completing an assessment, and for appealing an order. The appeal period from an assessment order is short and running it out is not curable in the ordinary course. We diarise from the date of service, and act well inside it.