Section 302 — Legal representative. Successor to s.159 of the 1961 Act.
Section 302 is in Chapter XVII — Special Provisions Relating to Certain Persons, which runs from section 302 to section 355.
Sub-section (1) makes the legal representative of a person who dies liable to pay any sum the deceased would have been liable to pay had he not died, in the like manner and to the same extent as the deceased.
Sub-section (2) supplies the procedure for assessing the deceased's income, including under section 279, and for levying any sum on the legal representative: a proceeding taken against the deceased before his death is deemed taken against the legal representative and may be continued from the stage at which it stood on the date of death; a proceeding that could have been taken had he survived may be taken against the legal representative; and all the provisions of the Act apply accordingly. Sub-section (3) deems the legal representative to be an assessee.
Sub-section (4) limits the liability, subject to sub-sections (5) to (7), to the extent the estate is capable of meeting it. Sub-section (5) makes the legal representative personally liable for tax payable in that capacity if, while the liability remains undischarged, he creates a charge on, disposes of or parts with any assets of the estate in, or which may come into, his possession, and sub-section (6) limits that personal liability to the value of the asset so dealt with. Sub-section (7) applies sections 304(2) and (5) and 305 to a legal representative so far as they are not inconsistent with this section.
Death would otherwise end both the liability and the proceeding, so the section transfers each to the legal representative and lets a part-heard proceeding continue from where it stood. The limits are the balancing half: the representative answers out of the estate, unless he has dealt with estate assets while the tax was unpaid, in which case he is personally liable up to the value of what he dealt with.
A proceeding already begun does not lapse and does not restart: it continues from the stage it had reached on the date of death, so notices already issued and compliance already made hold good. The general rule confining recovery to what the estate can meet is expressly subject to sub-sections (5) to (7); sub-section (5) turns the representative into a personal debtor, the trigger being dealing with estate assets while the tax is undischarged rather than any dishonesty, and sub-section (6) caps that liability at the value of the asset dealt with.
An individual dies while a scrutiny proceeding is part-heard. His legal representative receives the continuation of that proceeding from the stage it had reached, and an assessment raises a demand of Rs. 30 lakh; the estate is worth Rs. 18 lakh, so recovery is confined to that amount. Had he distributed Rs. 10 lakh of estate assets while the demand stood undischarged, sub-section (5) would make him personally liable up to that value.
You meet this section when a notice or assessment order is issued in the name of the deceased through his legal representative, and when a demand raised on the deceased is pursued against the estate. A representative who has distributed the estate meets it as a notice seeking recovery from him personally.
any proceeding taken against the deceased before his death shall be deemed to have been taken against the legal representative and may be continued against the legal representative from the stage at which it stood on the date of the death of the deceased
Every legal representative shall be personally liable for any tax payable by him in his capacity as legal representative if, while such liability for tax remains undischarged, he creates a charge on or disposes of or parts with any assets of the estate of the deceased
See the full 1961 to 2025 concordance.