Income Tax Notice Types and How to Respond: A Triage Guide for Business Owners

Quick answer

Confirm the notice is genuine using the portal's pre-login authentication service, then read four fields: the section quoted, the assessment year or tax year, who issued it, and the response date. Most notices are answered under Pending Actions, e-Proceedings. Deadlines are short and responses cannot be withdrawn, so gather documents before you open the response form.

First, confirm the notice is real

Before you draft anything, establish that the document in front of you was actually issued by the Income Tax Department. There is an official facility for exactly this, and it takes about two minutes.

Every communication issued on or after 1 October 2019 must carry a Document Identification Number (DIN) — a computer-generated number quoted on every letter, notice, order and summons. The department's own position on a communication that lacks one is unusually direct: it "would be treated as invalid and shall be non est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued."

To check yours, open the e-Filing portal homepage and click Authenticate Notice / Order issued by ITD. It is a pre-login service — you do not need an account or a password, and the mobile number you use does not have to be the one registered against your PAN. You have two ways in:

• Document Identification Number and mobile number. Enter the complete DIN exactly as printed on the notice.
• PAN, document type, year, date of issue and mobile number. Use this when the DIN is illegible. Where the portal offers a year-type selector, pick assessment year or tax year to match the notice.

Either route sends a six-digit OTP, valid for 15 minutes, with three attempts. A genuine notice returns its document number and date of issue. A document the department has no record of returns "No record found for the given criteria" or "No record found for the given Document Number."

If authentication fails, do not simply discard the letter. Log in to the portal and check whether anything is pending under Pending Actions. A genuine proceeding will nearly always be visible there too, and a mismatch between a posted letter and an empty portal is itself worth a professional's eye before you act on either.

How to read the notice: six fields that decide your next move

Notices look intimidating because they are written for a file, not for a reader. Six fields carry almost all the meaning, and the rest is boilerplate.

1. The DIN. Establishes authenticity, and is what you quote in any correspondence or grievance.
2. The section quoted. This is the single most informative field. It tells you whether you are being informed, asked, examined or billed. The triage tables below decode it.
3. The assessment year or tax year. This decides which Act governs the whole proceeding — see the next section. It is not the same as the date the notice was issued.
4. The issuing authority. "CPC" means the Centralized Processing Centre, which processes returns by system. A named Assessing Officer means a proceeding with a human attached to it. Automated correspondence and officer correspondence deserve different responses.
5. What is being asked. Read this twice. A request for a document is not an allegation. A proposed adjustment is not a demand. A demand is not a penalty.
6. The response date, and the proceeding limitation date. These are different things, and the gap between them is where people lose cases. More on that below.

Download the notice PDF from the portal and keep it with your working papers. An adjournment request, a rectification or an appeal will all ask for details only the original document carries.

Why your notice may quote a section number that looks obsolete

The Income-tax Act, 2025 commenced on 1 April 2026 and renumbered almost everything. This has produced a widespread and genuinely costly misunderstanding: that any notice arriving after that date must be under the new Act.

It does not work that way. The Act's own savings provision, section 536(2)(c), preserves the old law for old years. The Income Tax Department states the effect plainly: proceedings initiated on or after 1 April 2026 in respect of a tax year beginning before 1 April 2026 "shall be carried out in accordance with the provisions of the repealed Act."

In practice:

• Assessment year 2026-27 covers the income of FY 2025-26. It is governed entirely by the Income-tax Act, 1961, and so is every earlier year. Your return for it was filed under the 1961 Act, and every notice, assessment, rectification, penalty and appeal arising from it stays under the 1961 Act — even where the notice is issued in 2027 or later.
• Tax year 2026-27 covers the income of FY 2026-27. It is the first year under the Income-tax Act, 2025, and its return was not due until 2027.
• Both run in parallel. The department has confirmed it can conduct a reassessment for an old assessment year under the 1961 Act while conducting an assessment for tax year 2026-27 under the 2025 Act, for the same taxpayer, at the same time: "These are independent proceedings under two different Acts for two different income periods."

The department has addressed the two commonest cases head-on. A defective-return notice for AY 2026-27 issued after 1 April 2026 is governed by the 1961 Act and the defect "must be rectified under Section 139(9) of the old Act." A scrutiny notice under section 143(2) for AY 2026-27 leads to an assessment "completed under the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1961."

The rule to carry away is short: the year on the notice decides the Act, not the date on the notice. If you hold a notice quoting 139(9), 143(1), 142(1) or 148, you are almost certainly looking at a pre-2026 year, and the numbering is correct.

Section crosswalk: the numbering you will see, and its counterpart

Use this when a notice, a portal label and an adviser's email disagree. The right-hand column is what the same provision is called under the 2025 Act for tax year 2026-27 onward.

The Source column matters. "ITD" means the Income Tax Department has stated the pairing itself on its e-Filing portal. "Gazette" means MyFinancialAdvisory read the pairing off the enacted text of the Income-tax Act, 2025 by matching the operative words — reliable, but not a certified departmental crosswalk, and labelled honestly as such.

One honest discrepancy, disclosed rather than smoothed over. The portal's e-Proceeding FAQ describes suo-moto rectification as being under "154 of Income Tax Act,1961 or 284 of Income Tax Act ,2025." The enacted text of the 2025 Act puts rectification of a mistake apparent from the record at section 287, and puts the specified approving authority for reopening notices at section 284. We treat the gazette as controlling and read the FAQ's "284" as a typographical error, but you may see the number 284 on a portal screen until that page is revised.

Two gaps, both on purpose. Notices seeking third-party information are issued under section 133(6) of the 1961 Act, and both the notice and the portal use that number. The corresponding power under the 2025 Act sits in section 252(1), but no official mapping to a specific sub-clause was found, so the equivalent under the new Act is not stated more precisely here. Separately, the consolidated text of the Income-tax Act, 1961 could not be retrieved while this was written, so the 1961 section for a best-judgement assessment is left uncited rather than quoted from memory. Under the 2025 Act, section 271(1) lets the Assessing Officer assess to the best of his judgement where a person fails to comply with a notice under section 268(1) or section 270(8) — after giving that person an opportunity of being heard.

Notice triage, part one: what it is, what triggered it, and the clock

This is the table to scan first. Find the section quoted on your notice in the left column.

Notice triage, part two: your first move, the documents, and what silence costs

Same rows, in the same order. This is the half that tells you what to actually do on the day the notice arrives.

Intimation or scrutiny notice? The distinction that changes everything

These two words are used interchangeably in conversation and mean opposite things in practice.

An intimation is the output of a system. It tells you what the Centralized Processing Centre computed when it processed your return, and it asks nothing of you unless you disagree. If it shows a refund, that refund is processed for release, subject to any older demand being set off against it first. If it shows a demand, the demand exists. Nobody is examining you; a program has compared your return against the data the department holds and reported the difference. Your options are to accept it, file a rectification request where there is a mistake apparent from the record, or file a revised return if that window is still open.

A scrutiny notice opens a proceeding. A named officer will examine your return, and you are required to produce evidence by a stated date. It ends in an assessment order, which can be appealed. It is a conversation, and what you put on the record early is what every later stage is argued on.

A middle category causes the most confusion: the prima facie adjustment under section 143(1)(a). It arrives before processing, proposes specific changes, and lets you respond to each. It looks like an intimation and behaves like a notice. Treat it as a notice — once the adjustment is made it flows into the intimation and you are arguing backwards. If you are unsure whether your business return was filed correctly in the first place, this is the stage at which that question surfaces.

What a mismatch-driven intimation usually means

Most correspondence a business owner receives is not an accusation. It is arithmetic. The department holds a picture of your income assembled from TDS returns filed by everyone who paid you and from the transaction statements filed by banks, registrars and other reporting entities. Your return is compared against that picture, and the difference generates the letter.

The department's own list of what makes a return defective reads like a list of mismatches. TDS credit claimed without the matching receipt being offered as income. Gross receipts in Form 26AS or AIS higher than the total receipts declared under all heads. Business income declared without a balance sheet and profit and loss account. A name that does not match the PAN database.

That has three practical consequences.

Reconcile before you reply. Open Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement alongside your books for the same period. Most mismatches resolve into one of four things: income recognised in a different year from the one the deductor reported it in, a receipt that is not income at all, such as a reimbursement or a loan, a deductor quoting the wrong PAN, or a genuine omission.

Fix the source, not just the notice. If the mismatch is caused by how your TDS returns are being filed or by a deductor's error, the same letter will arrive next year. Getting the deductor to correct their statement is slower than replying, and cheaper than replying every year.

Say which of the four it is. A reply that asserts the return is correct, without saying why the department's figure is different, is the reply most likely to be followed by another notice.

Where to respond: the three official routes

The portal's Notice section carries three services — Authenticate the Notice or Order issued by ITD, e-Proceeding, and Comply to Notice — and keeps demands on a page of their own. Authentication aside, that leaves three places where you actually submit a reply. Using the wrong one wastes days you often do not have.

e-Proceedings, for almost everything

Dashboard, then Pending Actions, then e-Proceedings. This covers defective notices, prima facie adjustments, suo-moto rectification, intimations proposing a refund set-off, notices issued by an Assessing Officer or any other income-tax authority, and Seek for Clarification communications. Three tabs matter: Self, As Authorized Representative, and Of Other PAN or TAN — the last for compliance with a notice under section 133(6) or 131.

Working limits worth knowing before you start drafting:

• A single attachment may be up to 5 MB, with up to 10 attachments, and 50 MB in total.
• Written remarks are capped at 4,000 characters.
• Choose Partial Response if you will submit in more than one instalment or have more than ten document categories; Full Response for a single submission.
• Seek or View Adjournment is available, and asking before the date passes is materially different from explaining afterwards.
• Seek Video Conferencing appears only where the Assessing Officer has flagged the notice for it.
• You may have one authorised representative active at a time for a proceeding.
• The response does not need e-Verification.
• You cannot edit, update or withdraw a response once submitted. Draft offline, check it, then submit.

Comply to Notice, for notices not tied to your login

Some notices are issued to a person rather than to a PAN or TAN, or to someone authorised to respond for an entity whose e-Filing account they cannot access. Those are answered through Comply to Notice, a pre-login route reached from Help, then Notice. It needs the complete DIN as printed, an active mobile number and email for OTP validation, and correct Aadhaar details with the capacity in which you are responding. Attachments must be PDF, XLS, XLSX or CSV, up to 5 MB each and up to ten files.

Two limits to plan around: you cannot add an authorised representative here, and you cannot seek an adjournment. You also cannot edit a response, though you may submit a further one until the officer closes or blocks the proceeding.

Response to Outstanding Demand, for anything payable

Pending Actions, then Response to Outstanding Demand. Three choices: the demand is correct and unpaid, the demand is correct and already paid with challan details supplied, or you disagree in full or in part with one or more reasons and details entered against each. If your reason is not on the list, there is an Others option. Where you partly disagree, the department expects the undisputed portion to be paid.

One choice here is a one-way door, and the portal warns you in plain terms: "Once you submit the response as Demand is correct, then you cannot Disagree with Demand later on." Do not select it to make the item disappear from your dashboard.

Silence is not neutral either. The department states that if you do not respond, "the demand will be confirmed and will be adjusted against your refund (if any) or show as demand payable against your PAN." Section 245 notices, past and current, are downloadable from this same page.

Deadlines that are earlier than they look

Three timing traps account for most avoidable misses.

The submission window closes before the deadline. Where a proceeding has a Proceeding Limitation Date, the department states that the Submit Response option is available "only till 7 days prior to the Proceeding Limitation Date, till 6 PM." Not the date on the notice. Seven days earlier, at six in the evening. If your reply is not in by then, the officer has to reopen the window for you, and may not.

A greyed-out submit button is a status, not a bug. For CPC notices it means the response due date has lapsed. For notices issued through the department's internal system it means the officer has closed or blocked the proceeding.

The revised-return deadline is not 31 December. This one is repeated constantly and it is wrong. For AY 2026-27, a revised return may be filed up to 31 March 2027, or until the assessment is completed, whichever comes first. 31 December 2026 is the belated-return boundary, not the revision deadline — and it is also the point after which revising attracts an additional fee of ₹1,000 where total income does not exceed ₹5 lakh, and ₹5,000 otherwise. The practical effect is that a return filed late, in December, can still be revised afterwards. If you need to correct something, our revised return filing page sets out the mechanics.

Rectification, revised return, or appeal: picking the right instrument

Three different problems, three different instruments, and using the wrong one usually costs you the right one.

File a revised return when the mistake is yours and the filing window is still open — a figure you got wrong, a schedule you left out, a claim you forgot. This is the cleanest route and needs no permission. It also closes some notices outright: where a revised return has already been filed for the year, the portal blocks a response to a Seek for Clarification communication and displays that no further action is required.

File a rectification request when the mistake is in the department's own order or intimation and is apparent from the record — a TDS credit correctly claimed but not given, a deduction claimed and not allowed, a challan not picked up. Rectification lies against an intimation under section 143(1), an order under section 154 passed by CPC, or an assessment order passed by the Assessing Officer, and comes in three types: Reprocess the Return, Tax Credit Mismatch Correction, and Return Data Correction. The window is four years from the end of the financial year in which the order sought to be amended was passed. Beyond that, an application can still be routed to the Jurisdictional Assessing Officer with a reason and a single PDF up to 5 MB. The department is explicit that rectification is not a substitute for a revised return: do not use it "for any other mistake on your part which can be corrected with a revised return." A rectification request cannot be revised or withdrawn either, and needs neither e-Verification nor a digital signature.

File an appeal when the disagreement is about the law or the facts as found, not an obvious slip. The first appeal goes to the Joint Commissioner (Appeals) or the Commissioner (Appeals) in Form 35 — Form 99 under the 2025 Act — and the limitation is 30 days from the date of receipt of the order. The department confirms the limitation period is unchanged between the two Acts.

A practical note on sequencing: filing a rectification does not stop the appeal clock. If the order is one you may want to appeal, calendar the 30 days first and pursue the rectification alongside it.

Escalation and appeal routes, in outline

The appellate ladder is unchanged under the new Act. The department states it as: Assessing Officer, then Joint Commissioner (Appeals) or Commissioner (Appeals), then the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, then the High Court, then the Supreme Court. The powers of the appellate authorities, and the procedure, remain materially unchanged.

Two side routes are worth knowing exist:

• The Dispute Resolution Committee, for smaller cases. The eligibility thresholds are a variation below ₹10 lakh and returned income below ₹50 lakh, and the committee can waive penalty and grant immunity from prosecution. Section 379 of the 2025 Act substantially re-enacts the earlier provision.
• Revision. An order can be revised in the taxpayer's favour on application, or revised against the taxpayer where it is both erroneous and prejudicial to the interests of revenue. The outer limitation for the latter is two years from the end of the financial year in which the order was passed.

If limitation for an appeal expired before 1 April 2026, the new Act does not revive it. Condonation of delay may still be available where the delay is genuinely explained, but it is discretionary, and gross negligence is a stated ground for refusal.

When professional help genuinely pays for itself

Not every notice needs a professional, and paying for help on a routine intimation buys reassurance rather than outcome. The honest dividing lines:

Handle it yourself when the notice is an intimation you agree with, a defective-return notice caused by a wrong ITR form or an unfilled schedule, an e-Campaign prompt about a transaction you can identify in your own bank statement, or a demand you know is correct and intend to pay.

Get help when accounts and ledgers are being called for, when a scrutiny proceeding has opened, when a reassessment sequence has started at the show-cause stage, when a penalty show-cause notice arrives, when the same mismatch has survived one round of correction, or when the amount at stake is larger than the cost of getting the reply right. The common thread is that all of these set a factual record that constrains every later stage.

Get help early rather than late. The cheapest professional hour in a reassessment is the one spent on the show-cause reply before the year is reopened. The most expensive is the one spent at the Tribunal explaining a reply that was drafted in a hurry two years earlier.

If you would like the reply drafted and filed for you, that is what our income tax notice response service does; if the underlying problem is that returns are not being filed cleanly in the first place, annual income tax return filing and tax audit support address the cause rather than the symptom. For notices under the GST law, the procedure and the forms are entirely different — see the GST notice reply guide. And if you are still deciding which return applies to you at all, start with the guide to ITR forms, due dates and documents or, for companies and audited entities, the tax audit applicability thresholds.

What this guide does not claim

Being explicit about the edges is part of being useful.

• No outcome is promised. Nothing here predicts how a proceeding will be decided, how long an officer will take, or that a reply will close a matter.
• Two crosswalk entries are unsettled, and both are flagged where they appear: the rectification section under the 2025 Act, and the sub-clause counterpart to section 133(6).
• Time limits under the 1961 Act appear only where the Income Tax Department states them. The consolidated 1961 Act could not be retrieved while this was written, so nothing here rests on the bare Act. Where a period comes from the enacted Income-tax Act, 2025, it is labelled as such; otherwise the operative date is the one printed on your notice.
• Faceless assessment mechanics are out of scope, as are search and survey proceedings, which follow their own sequence.

Sources and currency

Applies to: Assessment year 2026-27 (income of FY 2025-26) and earlier, governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961; and tax year 2026-27 (income of FY 2026-27) onward, governed by the Income-tax Act, 2025.

Verified against primary sources on 19 August 2026. Two points are left open and flagged in the text: the e-Proceeding FAQ names section 284 for rectification under the Income-tax Act, 2025 while the enacted text puts it at section 287, and no official sub-clause mapping was found for section 133(6). This is general guidance on procedure, not advice on your specific notice; section numbers, portal screens and time limits change, so check the position for your assessment year or tax year before you act.

• Income-tax Act, 2025 (No. 30 of 2025) — Gazette of India Extraordinary
• Finance Act, 2026 (No. 4 of 2026) — Gazette of India Extraordinary
• Income Tax Department — e-Proceeding FAQs, showing both the 1961 and 2025 Act section numbers
• Income Tax Department — e-Proceedings user manual (response paths, adjournment, video conferencing)
• Income Tax Department — e-Proceedings FAQ (attachment size and count limits)
• Income Tax Department — Authenticate the Notice issued by ITD FAQ (the DIN rule)
• Income Tax Department — Authenticate the Notice issued by ITD user manual
• Income Tax Department — Response to Defective Notice 139(9) FAQs (the 15-day period)
• Income Tax Department — Respond to Outstanding Demand user manual
• Income Tax Department — Respond to Outstanding Demand FAQ (what silence costs)
• Income Tax Department — Raise Rectification Request FAQs (the four-year window)
• Income Tax Department — Comply To Notice FAQs (the pre-login route for 133(6) notices)
• Income Tax Department — Reassessment Proceedings FAQs, Income Tax Act 2025 help centre
• Income Tax Department — Income Tax Returns FAQs, Income Tax Act 2025 help centre
• Income Tax Department — Appeals and Revisions FAQs, Income Tax Act 2025 help centre
• Income Tax Department — Form Mapping Guide, Income-tax Act 1961 to Income-tax Act 2025