Section 264 — Scheme for submission of returns through tax return preparers. Successor to s.139B of the 1961 Act.
Section 264 is in Chapter XV — Return of Income, which runs from section 262 to section 267.
Sub-section (1) empowers the Board to make and notify a Scheme for furnishing returns of income through a tax return preparer, which may let specified classes of persons prepare and file returns through a preparer authorised under the Scheme, and may be made irrespective of section 263. Sub-section (2) defines the two key terms: a 'tax return preparer' is an individual authorised under the Scheme who is neither a person referred to in section 515(3)(a)(ii) nor an employee of the specified class of persons, and the 'specified class or classes of persons' is any person required to file a return who is not a company and whose accounts are not required to be audited under section 63 or any other law. Sub-section (3) requires every notification for the Scheme to be issued as provided in section 534.
It creates a channel for small, non-corporate and non-audited taxpayers to file through an authorised preparer, and the override of section 263 lets the Scheme depart from the ordinary return provisions where necessary. The exclusions in the definition of tax return preparer keep the role separate from the assessee's own employees and from the persons named in section 515(3)(a)(ii).
Nothing operates until the Board notifies a Scheme, and the Scheme, not this section, will carry the authorisation process, the fees and the procedure. A company cannot use this route, nor can anyone whose accounts must be audited under section 63 or any other law. A preparer must be an individual and cannot be an employee of the person whose return he prepares.
A firm whose accounts are required to be audited under section 63 asks a tax return preparer to file for it. The definition in sub-section (2)(b) shuts that out: the specified class of persons excludes a company altogether and excludes anyone whose accounts are required to be audited under section 63 or under any other law, so the audit requirement alone is enough to lose the facility. An individual outside audit is within the class, but the person filing for him must be an individual authorised under the Scheme, and cannot be that taxpayer's own employee or a person referred to in section 515(3)(a)(ii). Everything else — how a preparer is authorised and how the return is furnished — lives in the Scheme, and until the Board makes and notifies one there is nothing to use.
Only indirectly: through a Scheme made by the Board and notified as per section 534, and then in a return of income actually furnished through an authorised tax return preparer. The section confers no right on a taxpayer by itself — it empowers the Board, and the authority it names is the Board.
The Board may make a Scheme for furnishing returns of income through a tax return preparer and such Scheme shall be notified
See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.
See the notifications index.
