Sub-section (1) empowers the Board, subject to the control of the Central Government, to make rules by notification for carrying out the purposes of the Act.
Sub-section (2) lists, in particular and without prejudice to the generality of that power, twenty-eight matters for which rules may provide. They include the ascertainment and determination of any class of income; the manner and procedure for arriving at income derived in part from agriculture and in part from business, of persons residing outside India, of operations carried out in India by a non-resident, of transactions or activities of a non-resident, and of an individual assessable under section 99(3) and (4); the determination of the value of any perquisite; the percentage on written down value allowable as depreciation for buildings, machinery, plant or furniture; the matters specified in section 62; the conditions and limitations for deduction of rent under section 134; the matters specified in Chapter XI; the time, form, manner and particulars for applying for a Permanent Account Number and the transactions in which it must be quoted under section 262; the documents not to be furnished with the return but produced on demand under section 263(2)(a); the classes of persons who must file electronically and the mechanics of that filing; the matters to be prescribed under section 263(2)(b); the form and particulars of the audit or inventory valuation report under section 268(5); the remuneration of the Approving Panel and its constitution and functioning under section 274; the form and manner of information about payment of a sum under section 397(3)(d); the authority to be prescribed for any purpose of the Act; the procedure for giving effect to a double taxation agreement; the procedure for granting relief or deduction for foreign tax under section 159 or 160; the form, manner and fees for applications, claims, returns and information; the manner of verification of documents; the procedure on refund applications; the procedure for calculating interest, including rounding off fractions of a month and ignoring petty amounts; the regulation of matters under section 420; the form, manner and fee for an appeal or cross-objection and service of the intimation under section 358(3)(b); the circumstances and manner in which an appellate authority may permit fresh evidence; the form of the statement under section 507; the register of persons other than legal practitioners or accountants practising before income-tax authorities and the authority under section 515(5); the issue of certificates verifying payment of tax; and, as a residuary, any other matter which by the Act is to be or may be prescribed.
Sub-section (3) provides that in cases falling under sub-section (2)(b), where the income liable to tax cannot be definitely ascertained or can be ascertained only with unreasonable trouble and expense to the assessee, the rules may prescribe methods of estimating that income and, for income derived in part from agriculture and in part from business, specify the proportion deemed liable to tax; an assessment based on such an estimate or proportion is deemed to be duly made as per the Act.
Sub-section (4) provides that the rule-making power includes the power to give retrospective effect from a date not earlier than the commencement of the Act, and that unless the contrary is permitted, whether expressly or by necessary implication, no retrospective effect shall be given to any rule so as to prejudicially affect the interests of assessees.
Why it is there
The Act sets out entitlements and obligations but leaves their mechanics — forms, valuations, percentages, procedures — to be filled in, and this section is the authority for that filling in. Sub-section (1) is the general power and sub-section (2) an illustrative list, so the enumeration guides without confining. Sub-section (4) is the limit that matters: the Board may reach backwards, but not before the Act began and not, ordinarily, to an assessee's detriment.
Who it applies to
The Board, which makes the rules subject to the control of the Central Government
The Central Government, whose control the power is subject to
Any assessee whose computation, form, claim or procedure is governed by a rule made under the section
An assessee whose income is estimated under rules made under sub-section (3)
A person other than a legal practitioner or an accountant practising before income-tax authorities, for whom a register may be maintained under sub-section (2)(z)
The figures, and what each one turns on
Read the condition in the same row. A figure quoted without it is a wrong answer with a citation attached.
What
Figure
The condition on it
Where
How far back a rule may be given retrospective effect
Not earlier than the date of commencement of this Act
The power to make rules includes the power to give retrospective effect from such a date
Sub-section (4)
Bar on retrospective effect prejudicial to assessees
No retrospective effect prejudicially affecting the interests of assessees
Unless the contrary is permitted, whether expressly or by necessary implication
Sub-section (4)
What this means in practice
Sub-section (2) is illustrative, not exhaustive: it operates "in particular, and without prejudice to the generality" of sub-section (1), and clause (zb) sweeps in any other matter which by the Act is to be or may be prescribed — so the absence of a subject from the list is not by itself an answer to a rule. The power is not the Board's alone; sub-section (1) makes it subject to the control of the Central Government and requires a notification. Sub-section (4) contains both a grant and a restraint, and the restraint is qualified: retrospective effect prejudicial to assessees is barred only unless the contrary is permitted expressly or by necessary implication, so the argument in a real case is usually about that qualification rather than about the bar. Sub-section (3) is worth noting separately because it changes the character of an assessment: where income cannot be definitely ascertained, or only at unreasonable trouble and expense, an assessment based on a prescribed estimate or a prescribed agriculture-business proportion is deemed to be duly made as per the Act, so it is not open to challenge merely as an estimate.
An example
Illustrative only, and invented for this page. The figures are chosen to show the rule biting, not taken from any real matter.
The Board notifies a rule under sub-section (2)(c) fixing the manner of valuing a perquisite and gives it effect from a date in an earlier year. Sub-section (4) permits retrospectivity, but not from a date before the Act commenced, and not so as to prejudicially affect the interests of assessees unless the contrary is permitted expressly or by necessary implication. So a rule that raises the taxable value of a perquisite for a year already behind the taxpayer has to find that permission in the Act itself; the Board's own view that the change is clarificatory is not what sub-section (4) asks for.
Where you meet this section
You never receive a notice under this section, but you meet it whenever a computation turns on a rule — a perquisite valuation, a depreciation percentage, a prescribed form or an electronic filing requirement — and it is the provision cited when a rule is challenged as beyond the Board's power or as impermissibly retrospective.
The words themselves
The Board may, subject to the control of the Central Government, by notification, make rules for carrying out the purposes of this Act.
Section 533(1), Income-tax Act, 2025.
The power to make rules conferred by this section shall include the power to give retrospective effect, from a date not earlier than the date of commencement of this Act, to the rules or any of them and, unless the contrary is permitted (whether expressly or by necessary implication), no retrospective effect shall be given to any rule so as to prejudicially affect the interests of assessees.
Section 533(4), Income-tax Act, 2025.
an assessment based on such estimate or proportion shall be deemed to be duly made as per this Act
Section 533(3), Income-tax Act, 2025.
What people get wrong
Treating the list in sub-section (2) as exhaustive. It operates in particular and without prejudice to the generality of sub-section (1), and clause (zb) covers any other matter which by the Act is to be or may be prescribed.
Assuming the Board makes rules independently. Sub-section (1) makes the power subject to the control of the Central Government and exercisable by notification.
Assuming no rule can be retrospective. Sub-section (4) expressly includes that power, limited to a date not earlier than the commencement of the Act.
Reading the protection of assessees as absolute. Sub-section (4) bars prejudicial retrospectivity only unless the contrary is permitted, expressly or by necessary implication.
Challenging an estimate-based assessment merely as an estimate. Sub-section (3) deems an assessment based on a prescribed estimate or proportion to be duly made as per the Act.
Looking for the substantive rule in this section. It confers the power; the content is in the rules made under it.
What this replaced
The correspondence is the Income Tax Department’s own, from its comparison utility for the 1961 and 2025 Acts. A renumbering is the easy half; whether the words changed is the half that decides cases.
Rules of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 that work section 533. Where the rule’s own heading names the section we say so; the rest are marked on reading the rule, which is our derivation and not the department’s. A rule that serves the section silently and that we have missed will not appear here.
Rule 1 — Short title and commencement — on reading the rule
Rule 121 — Application seeking to give effect to terms of any agreement under section 533(2)(p) and procedure for giving effect to decision under agreement
Rule 192 — Production of additional evidence before Joint Commissioner (Appeals) and Commissioner (Appeals) under section 533(2)(x)
Rule 269 — Procedure to be followed in calculating interest under section 533(2)(u)
Rule 270 — Determination of income, being partly from agricultural and partly from business — on reading the rule
Rule 271 — Income from manufacture of rubber, coffee and tea — on reading the rule
A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. Every one below was written under the 1961 Act; it reaches this section because the department’s own concordance carries the provision it names to this one.
Circular No. 792 — 839. Validity of Returns of Income filed in old forms prescribed prior to 11-5-2000 2000-06-21
A notification is made under a power the Act gives and, within that power, is law. These too were made under the 1961 Act and are placed here by the department’s concordance. We hold 554 in all; the 250 most recent are listed.
Notification No. 22/2012 — Section 10(48) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 - Exemptions - foreign oil Company selling crude oil in India - notified foreign OIL co 2012-06-14
Notification: 15 Date of Issue: 30/3/2012 — Income-tax (Fourth Amendment Rules, 2012 – Depreciation restricted to 15% on wind mills installed after 31-3-2012 2012-03-30
Notification No. 05/2012 — Income-tax (Second Amendment) Rules, 2012 - Insertion of rule 114DA and Form No.49C 2012-02-06
Notification: 1 Date of Issue: 2/1/2012 — rules/AMENDMENT RULES - Income-tax (First Amendment) Rules, 2012 - Insertion of rule 11-OA and form no. 3cn 2012-01-02
Notification No. 215 — Income-tax (Ninth Amendment) Rules, 2007 - Amendments in rule 44C; substitution of rule 44CA and Form No. 34B; insertion of Form N 2007-08-07
Notification No. 197 — Income-tax (Seventh Amendment) Rules, 2007 - Amendments in rule 17A and Form No. 10A 2007-05-30
Notification No. 194 — Income-tax (Sixth Amendment) Rules, 2007 - Substitution of rule 2C; Amendments in Form No. 56 2007-05-30
Notification No. 193 — Income-tax (Fifth Amendment) Rules, 2007 - Amendments in rule 2CA and Form No. 56D 2007-05-30
Notification No. 061 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 11 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2007-02-28
Notification No. 003 — S.O. (E).-In exercise of the powers conferred by section 295 read with rule 3 of Part A of the Fourth Schedule to the Income-tax A 2007-01-15
Notification No. 357 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 10 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2006-11-24
Notification No. 314 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 295 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2006-11-09
Notification No. 309 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 10 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2006-10-30
Notification No. 288 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 35D of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2006-10-19
Notification No. 194 — S.0.1176(E)—In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 295 read with sub-clauses (iv), (v), (vi) and (vi a) of clause (23C) of 2006-07-25
Notification No. 187 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 36 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2006-07-20
Notification No. 267 — After the scientific research programme approved under section 295 2004-10-25
Notification No. 237 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 197 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-09-02
Notification No. 142 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 80 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-04-19
Notification No. 128 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 3 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-03-31
Notification No. 11 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 206C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-01-13
Notification No. 12 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 16 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-01-12
Notification No. 08 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 17 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2004-01-12
Notification No. 299 — Income-Tax (Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Rules, 2003 Preamble In exercise of the powers conferred by section 295 of the Income-tax Act 2003-11-21
Notification No. 298 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 44DA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-11-20
Notification No. 209 — In excercise of powers conferred by section 295 of Income-tax Act, 1961 (43 of 1961), the Central Board of Direct Taxes hereby mak 2003-09-01
Notification No. 204 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 206 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-08-26
Notification No. 203 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 10A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-08-26
Notification No. 185 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 206C of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-07-31
Notification No. 183 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 295 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-07-31
Notification No. 180 — ) and/or units of such Mutual Funds which
have been set up as dedicated Funds for
investment in Government Securities and
which 2003-07-25
Notification No. 156 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 80 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-06-18
Notification No. 143 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 80CCA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-06-09
Notification No. 138 — Amendment of the Income-tax Rules under section 295 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 2003-05-29
Read this before you rely on it. Every decision below was decided under the Income-tax Act, 1961. It appears here because it is tagged to a 1961 provision that the department’s own mapping carries to section 533. That is an inference we have drawn, not a holding on the new section: where the words changed in the move, the reasoning may not survive. Treat this as the place to start looking, not as authority on the 2025 Act.
Notification 67/2022 — the 194S formsCBDTCuts both waystagged s.295 I deducted 1% under s.194S on a peer-to-peer purchase. Which challan and which certificate, and by when?
Read with
Section 62
Section 99
Section 134
Section 159
Section 160
Section 262
Section 263
Section 268
Section 274
Section 358
Section 397
Section 420
Section 507
Section 515
Chapter XI
What this page does not tell you. It does not reproduce the section. Everything above was written from the section’s own text as the Income Tax Department publishes it — the text is here, and nothing here is advice on your facts. Where a figure matters, read the sub-section it comes from.
