I am holding a notice and I do not know whether my year is under the Income-tax Act, 1961 or the Income-tax Act, 2025. Which Act applies to me, and is the old Act still of any use now that it has been repealed?
Section 536(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 repealed the Income-tax Act, 1961 on 1 April 2026, and section 536(2) then kept almost all of it working. Income earned up to 31 March 2026 is governed by the 1961 Act and assessed in assessment year 2026-27; income earned from 1 April 2026 is governed by the 2025 Act and assessed for tax year 2026-27. Every proceeding about a year beginning before 1 April 2026 stays under the old Act however late it starts — notice, assessment, reassessment, recomputation, rectification, penalty, reference, revision and appeal — and is carried out by the old Act's procedure. Tax deduction follows a different line entirely: the Act that applies is fixed by whichever of credit or payment happens first, so a sum credited in March 2026 and paid in April 2026 is still a 1961-Act deduction. The two Acts will run side by side for years, and the CBDT says the Department may run proceedings under both against the same person at the same time.
Start from the date the income was earned, not the date on the notice. Section 536(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 repealed the Income-tax Act, 1961 with effect from 1 April 2026. Income earned up to 31 March 2026 did not move. The CBDT put it in one line in its FAQs on Interplay and Transition: “Income earned during the FY 2025-26 will be governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961 and assessed in AY 2026-27. Income earned from 01 April 2026 onwards will be governed by the Income Tax Act, 2025 and assessed for Tax Year 2026-27 and onwards.” So the last assessment year under the old Act is 2026-27, not 2025-26. The return you filed in July 2026 for the year ended 31 March 2026 was an old-Act return on old-Act forms, and the Department's own portal help pages say that in terms.
Your earlier years are not dead, and that is the whole point of section 536(2). Clause (c) provides that the repealed Act “shall continue to apply to any proceeding pending on the date of commencement of this Act and to any proceedings initiated on or after the 1st April, 2026 (including notices, assessment, reassessment, recomputation, rectification, penalty, reference, revision and appeals) in respect of any tax year beginning before the 1st April, 2026 and such proceedings shall be carried out as per the procedure specified in the repealed Income-tax Act”. Clause (d) adds that a penalty for such a year may still be initiated and imposed under the old Act “as if this Act had not been enacted”. Clause (e) carries every pending application, appeal, reference and revision before an income-tax authority, the Appellate Tribunal or any court through untouched. Clause (v) does the same for anything connected with a search under section 132 or a requisition under section 132A begun before 1 April 2026. A section 148 notice issued in 2030 for assessment year 2023-24 is therefore still a section 148 notice, still tested against section 148A and section 149, still appealed under section 246A — and the whole of this library's writing on the 1961 Act still answers it.
The two Acts run in parallel, and against the same person. Asked whether an officer can reassess assessment year 2024-25 under the old Act while assessing tax year 2026-27 under the new one, the CBDT answered: “These are independent proceedings under two different Acts for two different income periods. The Department can run parallel proceedings where necessary.” Expect two files, two sets of section numbers and two limitation clocks, and do not let a reply drafted for one of them be filed in the other.
Tax deduction at source follows a different rule from income, and this is the one practitioners get wrong. The CBDT's rule is the earlier of two events, not the year of the income: “The Act governing TDS depends on when the ‘earlier of the event of credit or payment’ occurs. If the earlier event occurs on or before 31st March, 2026, the Income-tax Act, 1961 will be applicable. However, if the earlier event occurs on or after 1st April, 2026, the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 2025 shall be applicable.” So a sum credited to a payee on 31 March 2026 and paid on 15 April 2026 is deducted under the 1961 Act, and the deposit that follows in May 2026 is an old-Act deposit on an old-Act challan, because the obligation crystallised on the date of credit. From 1 April 2026 you stop quoting 194C, 194J or 194H on the challan and quote the serial of the section 393 Table instead; the CBDT warns that old section numbers will throw validation errors.
The quarterly statements have their own fence, and it does not fall where the income fence falls. The fourth quarter of financial year 2025-26, January to March 2026, is filed under the 1961 Act in Forms 24Q, 26Q, 27Q and 27EQ. Watch the date on the collection statement. Rule 31AA of the Income-tax Rules, 1962 gives Form 27EQ for the quarter ending 31 March a due date of “15th May of the financial year immediately following the financial year in which collection is made”, and 15 July, 15 October and 15 January for the other three, while the deduction statements are due 31 May and the CBDT's transition FAQ prints 31 May for all four. The rule is still printed in those terms and I found nothing amending it, so file Form 27EQ by 15 May 2026 and you are safe on either reading. The first quarter of tax year 2026-27, April to June 2026, is filed under the 2025 Act in the new Forms 138, 140, 143 and 144, due 31 July 2026 — Form 138 for salary, 140 for other resident payments, 144 for non-residents and 143 for collections at source. Rule 219 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 sets one calendar for all four: 31 July, 31 October, 31 January, and 31 May of the financial year immediately following the tax year. So from the first quarter of tax year 2026-27 the collection statement loses the fifteenth-of-the-month dates rule 31AA gave it and files alongside the deduction statements.
Correcting an old-year statement is where the two Acts bite on each other, and the shorter clock wins. The form stays old: the CBDT says a revised or correction statement for a period governed by the 1961 Act “must continue to be filed under the old Act framework, even if such revision is made after 1st April, 2026”, in the old Act's form numbers and formats. The deadline does not stay old. The second proviso to section 200(3) of the 1961 Act, inserted by Act No. 15 of 2024 with effect from 1 April 2025, bars a correction statement “after the expiry of six years from the end of the financial year in which the statement referred to in sub-section (3) is required to be delivered”. Section 397(3)(f) of the 2025 Act fixes two years from the end of the tax year, and says in terms that the two years run for a statement required “under section 200 of the Income-tax Act, 1961”. The CBDT reads it the same way: asked about an error in a third-quarter statement for financial year 2025-26, it answered that the correction “can be furnished within a period of two years from the end of the tax year in which the original statement was due”. For the fourth quarter of 2025-26, due 31 May 2026, the two-year clock runs out on 31 March 2029 and the six-year proviso on 31 March 2033. Work to 2029. Do not plan a correction on the six-year proviso.
Section 536(2) does a great deal more than preserve proceedings, and the clauses are worth reading before you assume something lapsed. An election, declaration or option exercised under the old Act is deemed made under the corresponding provision of the new one, by clause (f). Agreements, appointments, approvals, recognitions, circulars, directions, instructions, notifications, orders, rules and schemes made under the old Act continue in force so far as they are not inconsistent with the new Act, by clause (j) — which is why the old circulars this library cites still bind the officer. A faceless or interface-minimising scheme notified under the old Act is deemed made under the corresponding provision of the new Act, or under section 532 where there is no corresponding provision, by clause (u). The new Act's own faceless assessment provision, answering to section 144B of the 1961 Act, is section 273, which sets up the National Faceless Assessment Centre and the assessment, verification, technical and review units; section 532 is the general power to frame such a scheme. What does not revive is time already gone: clause (k) says that where the period for an application, appeal, reference or revision had already expired before 1 April 2026, nothing in the new Act lets you make it now merely because the new Act allows a longer period. And clause (g) is a trap in the other direction — for an old year, interest payable by the Government on a refund and interest payable by you on a default are computed under the new Act for the period after 1 April 2026.
The carry-forward clauses are the ones that decide money. Clause (l) converts credit for tax paid under section 115JAA or section 115JD into credit under the corresponding provision of the new Act, for the same number of years it would have run. Clause (m) carries forward losses under a table naming sections 71B, 72, 73, 73A and 74A, to be set off in the manner the old section provided. Clause (n) carries a capital loss under section 74 forward for eight financial years from the year it was first computed. Clauses (o) and (p) keep the clawback in section 72A and section 72AB alive, and clause (q) keeps the clawback on section 47 transfers alive through section 47A. Clause (r) adds unabsorbed allowance under section 32(2) or section 35(4) to the new Act's capital allowance, clause (s) carries the section 35ABA, 35ABB, 35D, 35DD, 35DDA and 35E deductions, and the first proviso to section 36(1)(ix), through to completion, and clause (t) carries the credit balance in a section 36(1)(viia) bad-debt provision across. Clause (3) tells you to read any reference in the new Act to a tax year commencing 1 April 2025 or earlier as a reference to the corresponding previous year, and clause (4) preserves section 6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897 on top of all of it.
Where the 2025 Act did something different rather than renumbering, it is worth knowing before you rely on old law. Section 399 processes statements of tax collected at source as well as tax deducted, which section 200A never did, and the one-year limit for the intimation has moved out of a proviso and into its own sub-section (2). Section 398 is headed “Consequences of failure to deduct or pay or, collect or pay”, so deduction and collection defaults now sit in one section instead of section 201 and section 206C(7). Section 397(3)(f) fixes a flat two years from the end of the tax year for a correction statement, and by its own words that window runs for a statement required “under section 200 of the Income-tax Act, 1961” as well. Section 270 folds processing and assessment into a single section, so the intimation an assessee appeals is an intimation under section 270(1) — but a deductor's or a collector's is an intimation under section 399(1), and section 356(a) and section 357(c) list both. Section 284 puts sanction for a reopening notice with the Additional or Joint Commissioner or Director. Section 427(3) extends the Rs. 200 a day fee to a statement of financial transaction, capped at Rs. 1,00,000. And section 428 turns the failure to furnish an audit report into a fee of Rs. 75,000, rising to Rs. 1,50,000 after a month, rather than a penalty. That matters for what you can argue: section 470 carries the reasonable-cause defence forward, but it works off a named list — “section 441 or 442 or 446 or 448” and on through 468 — which leaves out several sections inside that range, section 443, 444, 445, 447 and 464 among them, and leaves out a fee under section 427 or section 428 altogether. Check that your section is on the list before you plead reasonable cause.
This is where the machinery went. Each pair reads the same way: the provision of the 1961 Act, then the section of the 2025 Act that now carries it. Search, section 132 of the 1961 Act, is section 247, and requisition, section 132A, is section 248; survey, section 133A, is section 253. The return, section 139, is section 263. Inquiry before assessment, section 142, is section 268, and the valuation reference, section 142A, is section 269. Assessment is section 270, and it folds in both the processing that was section 143(1) and the scrutiny assessment that was section 143(3); best judgment assessment, section 144, is section 271. Reopening now runs from 279 to 286 — section 147 is section 279, the section 148 notice is section 280, the section 148A procedure that precedes it is section 281, the section 149 time limit is section 282, the section 151 sanction is section 284, and the section 153 limit for completing the assessment is section 286. Rectification, section 154, is section 287. The section 156 notice of demand is section 289. Block assessment after a search, section 158BC, is section 294.
On the appellate and recovery side, again old first and new second. The orders appealable under section 246A of the 1961 Act split between section 356, which lists what goes to the Joint Commissioner (Appeals), and section 357, which lists what goes to the Commissioner (Appeals). The procedure in appeal that was section 250 is section 359, and the appellate powers that were section 251 are section 360. The Tribunal itself is constituted by section 361. The appeal to it that was section 253 is section 362, and the Tribunal's orders under section 254 are section 363. The appeal to the High Court under section 260A is section 365. Revision splits as it always did: section 263 of the 1961 Act, for orders prejudicial to revenue, is section 377, and section 264, on your own application, is section 378. When tax is payable and when you are deemed in default, which was section 220, is section 411, the recovery certificate that was section 222 is section 413, the stay of proceedings on that certificate that was section 225 is section 415, and credit for advance tax under section 219 is section 410.
And this is where deduction, interest, fee and penalty went. Salary deduction, section 192 of the 1961 Act, is section 392. Every other deduction — section 194C, section 194H, section 194-I, section 194J and the rest — is section 393, identified by the serial of its Table: commission or brokerage at serial 1(ii), rent at 2(ii), interest other than interest on securities at 5(ii) and 5(iii), contract payments at 6(i), and professional and technical fees at 6(iii). Payments to a non-resident that were section 195 fall in the section 393(2) Table, with the catch-all for other sums at serial 17. Collection at source, section 206C, is section 394. The lower or nil deduction certificate under section 197, and under section 195(2) and (3), is section 395, applied for under rule 213 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 in Form No. 128. The information a remitter furnishes under section 195(6) is section 397(3)(d), now in Form 145 with the accountant's certificate in Form 146, and the correction statement the proviso to section 200(3) allowed is section 397(3)(f). Consequences of failure to deduct, section 201, is section 398; processing of a statement, section 200A, is section 399. Interest for a late return, section 234A, is section 423; for short advance tax, section 234B, is section 424; for deferment, section 234C, is section 425. The Rs. 200 a day statement fee that was section 234E is section 427, and the section 234F fee for a late return or a missing audit report is section 428. The penalty for failing to deduct, section 271C, is section 448, and the penalty for failing to keep books, section 271A, is section 441. Under-reporting and misreporting, section 270A, is section 439, and the reasonable-cause defence that was section 273B is section 470.
The computation provisions moved too, and for most readers this is the part that matters. Each entry here was read on the Department's own page for the 2025-Act section and fixed by its marginal note. On the business head: the charge in section 28 of the 1961 Act is section 26; depreciation in section 32 is section 33; the disallowances in section 40 are section 35 and those in section 40A are section 36; the actual-payment rule in section 43B is section 37. Presumptive taxation is consolidated — section 44AD and section 44ADA are both section 58, and section 44AE is not a separate section any more but row 2 of the section 58 Table, which keeps Rs. 1,000 per ton of vehicle weight a month for a heavy goods vehicle and Rs. 7,500 a month for any other. Tax audit, section 44AB, is section 63, and its marginal note is now just “Tax audit”. On capital gains: the charge in section 45 is section 67; distribution on liquidation in section 46 is section 68; the transactions not regarded as transfer in section 47 are section 70; the mode of computation in section 48 is section 72; the cost rules in section 49 are section 73; the stamp-duty-value provision in section 50C is section 78. The rollovers keep their shape — section 54 is section 82, section 54EC is section 85 and section 54F is section 86 — and section 67 itself names sections 82 to 89 as the band the exemptions now sit in.
On deductions, treaties and rates: section 80A is section 122, section 80C is section 123, section 80D is section 126, section 80G is section 133 and section 80JJAA is section 146. Treaty relief is section 159, which folds section 90 and section 90A into one provision; section 91 is section 160; and the arm's-length computation in section 92 is section 161. Tax on long-term capital gains under section 112 is section 197, and the new regime in section 115BAC is section 202. The unexplained-income sections pair one for one, and the arithmetic of six onto five has an answer. Section 68 is section 102, “Unexplained credits”, carrying the loan-or-borrowing rule, the share application money rule for a company in which the public are not substantially interested, and the venture capital carve-out. Section 69 is section 103, “Unexplained investment”. Section 69A is section 104, “Unexplained asset”, which defines asset to include money, bullion, jewellery, virtual digital asset or other valuable article, so a virtual digital asset is inside the section on its face. Section 69C is section 105, “Unexplained expenditure”. Section 69D is section 106, “Amount borrowed or repaid through negotiable instrument, hundi, etc.”. Section 69B is the one that lost its own number. Its two limbs were folded into the sections carrying the matching first limb, so the excess-over-books limb for an investment sits in section 103 and the excess-over-books limb for an asset sits in section 104. That is why six became five. The special rate on that income in section 115BBE is section 195, headed “Tax on income referred to in sections 102 to 106”, and section 107 adds that income referred to in sections 102, 103, 104, 105 and 106 is charged to tax as per the provisions of section 195.
The rest of the computation machinery, old first and new second, and these are the pairs a return actually turns on. The general deduction in section 37(1) of the 1961 Act is section 34, headed “General conditions for allowable deductions”: sub-section (1) carries the old formula — laid out or expended wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the business or profession, neither capital nor personal — and what were Explanations 1, 2 and 3 are now sub-section (2), the bar on an offence or a purpose prohibited by law, the corporate social responsibility bar and the political-publication advertisement bar. On capital gains, depreciable assets under section 50 are section 74, a market linked debenture under section 50AA is section 76 and a slump sale under section 50B is section 77. The agricultural-land rollover in section 54B is section 83 and the compulsory-acquisition rollover in section 54D is section 84. The cost definitions in section 55 are section 90, which opens “For the purposes of sections 72 and 73” — the two sections that now carry the section 48 mode of computation and the section 49 cost rules. Income from other sources, section 56, is section 92, and the receipt-without-consideration charge that practitioners know as section 56(2)(x) is now section 92(2)(m), with the fifty thousand rupee threshold intact. Cite it as 92(2)(m): the new sub-section runs (a) to (m) and has no clause (x) at all.
Transfer pricing moved as a block, and the block certifies itself. Section 173 of the 2025 Act opens “For the purposes of this section and sections 161, 162, 163, 165, 171 and 172”, which is the definitions section naming its own family. Associated enterprise, section 92A of the 1961 Act, is section 162, and the test now runs to twelve clauses, (a) to (l). International transaction, section 92B, is section 163. The arm’s length price, section 92C, is section 165 — and note the heading changed from “Computation” to “Determination”. The reference to the Transfer Pricing Officer, section 92CA, is section 166, which adds a multi-year option the old section did not have. Documentation, section 92D, is section 171; the accountant’s report, section 92E, is section 172, and the report that was Form 3CEB is now Form No. 48. The definitions in section 92F are section 173, where “specified date” is now one month before the return due date. An advance pricing agreement under section 92CC is section 168. Take care with section 166: a bare “section 166” in an old paper means section 166 of the 1961 Act, which is a different provision altogether, so write the Act name.
The 80-IA family is the one place on this page where the shape matters more than the numbers, because four of these sections do not re-enact anything. Section 80-IA is section 138, section 80-IAB is section 139, section 80-IB is section 141 and section 80-IBA is section 142 — and each of those four says only that the deduction is to be calculated as per the provisions of the named section of the Income-tax Act, 1961 “as if the said Act had not been repealed”, and only for the tax years that section would have allowed. So the conditions are still read out of the old text; the new section is a bridge, not a replacement. Two are different. Section 80-IAC, the start-up deduction, is section 140 and is re-enacted in full, with the window printed as on or after the 1st April, 2016 but before the 1st April, 2030. Section 80-IE, the North-Eastern undertakings deduction, is section 143, also re-enacted in full, with the period beginning on the 1st April, 2007 and ending before the 1st April, 2017 — and although section 143 never names section 80-IE, it does reach back once, to the second proviso to section 80-IB(4) of the 1961 Act. Nothing was established for section 80-IC or section 80-ID and nothing is offered here.
House property, the special rates and the minimum taxes close the list, and one of them is a merger. The deductions in section 24 of the 1961 Act are section 22, and section 25 — the bar on interest payable outside India without deduction — has been folded into that same section as sub-section (6), keyed now to Chapter XIX-B and to section 306. Arrears of rent and unrealised rent received later, section 25A, are section 23, and the thirty per cent deduction is in its sub-section (3). Property owned by co-owners, section 26, is section 24. On rates, short-term capital gains under section 111A are section 196 at twenty per cent, and long-term gains on equity under section 112A are section 198 at twelve and a half per cent above one lakh twenty-five thousand rupees; note the ordering, because section 197 sits between them and carries long-term gains generally. And the two minimum taxes are now one section. Section 115JB and section 115JC both become section 206, “Special provision for minimum alternate tax and alternate minimum tax”, which carries book profit at fifteen per cent, nine per cent for a unit in an International Financial Services Centre, and adjusted total income at eighteen and a half per cent, fifteen for a co-operative society and nine in an International Financial Services Centre. Two old citations now land on one section, so say which limb you mean.
What is still not fixed, so that you do not read silence as an answer. The annual value in section 23 and the charge in section 22 have no pairing printed here: section 21 and section 20 of the 2025 Act are the structural candidates and neither page could be read, although two enacted cross-references do fix section 21(6) as the old section 23(2). The definitions of “capital asset” and “transfer” in sections 2(14) and 2(47) are not given, because no print of the 2025 Act’s own definitions section has been reached — and a file that looks like one is in fact the 1961 Act’s section 2 carrying a 2025 date stamp. Sections 16 and 17 on salary, and sections 80-IC and 80-ID, are likewise absent. Sections 68 to 69D are no longer on that list: each is paired above on the enacted words of the 2025-Act section, and the reason six became five is that section 69B has no section of its own and is split between sections 103 and 104. Every entry above was read on the Department’s own page for the 2025-Act section and fixed by its marginal note. Where that could not be done, there is a gap rather than a guess.
The opening chapters are a reorganisation rather than a renumbering, and they rest on a different kind of evidence, so treat them accordingly. The Department's own enacted text of the Act prints sections 1 to 15 against their marginal notes. Definitions stay at section 2; a new section 3 defines “tax year”; the charge stays at section 4, the scope of total income at section 5, residence at section 6 and income deemed to accrue or arise in India at section 9. Around them things move: section 7 of the new Act carries both section 7 and section 8 of the old one, section 9B becomes section 8, section 5A becomes section 10, the exemption list in section 10 becomes section 11, sections 13A and 13B become section 12, the heads of income in section 14 become section 13, and section 14A becomes section 14. Salaries still begins at section 15. Three points in that sequence are pinned on their own departmental pages — section 4 in Chapter II, section 15 in Chapter IV, and Schedule III, whose face reads “[See section 11]” — so it is anchored at both ends and in the middle. The rest of it is read from the enacted text alone, because the individual pages for those numbers could not be opened. One warning inside it: the clauses of section 9(1) of the old Act are now sub-sections of section 9, so a citation to section 9(1)(vii) does not carry across as it stands.
Read the 2025 Act as it now stands, because it has already been amended. Act No. 4 of 2026 — the Finance Act, 2026, which received assent on 30 March 2026 — with effect from 1 April 2026 substituted section 395(1)(c) and inserted section 395(6), which lets the application for a lower or nil deduction certificate go instead to a prescribed income-tax authority that may issue or reject it on electronic verification. The same Act omitted section 443, the penalty in respect of certain income, with effect from 1 April 2026 — so that penalty never operated, and its text now survives only in a footnote on the departmental page, which records that it applied to income referred to in sections 102 to 106 and was charged at 10% of the tax payable under section 195(1)(i). Footnote 84 to section 393 records that sub-section (6) is to be renumbered as sub-section (6)(a) from 1 April 2027 — on the statute book, not yet in force. Read the section as the departmental page prints it today, and read its footnotes: a 2025-Act text printed before 2026 is not the section you are being assessed under.
Two things the Finance Act, 2026 did are worth more to a reader than any renumbering. It cut the tax on unexplained income: the rate in section 195(1)(i) came down from 60% to 30%. That is clause 46 of the Finance Bill, 2026, and the Explanatory Memorandum says of it that “this amendment will take effect from the 1st day of April, 2026 and shall apply for tax year 2026-27 and subsequent tax years”. Read the tax-year limb as well as the date: a reader who takes only “1 April 2026” may think the cut reaches tax year 2025-26, and it does not. Two points on the source. The enacted words of the clause that made the substitution have not been read, so nothing here is taken from the amending clause itself; the date rests on the Finance Act’s own general commencement in section 1(2)(a), which brings sections 2 to 129 into force on 1 April 2026, and on the Department’s own footnote. That footnote is the second point, and it is the one to check. The departmental page for section 195 carries an amendment footnote against the rate in sub-section (1)(i), and it reads: Sub. for “60%” by Act No. 4 of 2026, w.e.f. 1-4-2026. Act No. 4 of 2026 is the Finance Act, 2026. The footnote names the Act and not a section of it, so no section number of that Act is given here. But the Department serves more than one edition of section 195 and the two do not agree. One prints the rate as 60% and carries no amendment footnote at all; the other prints 30% and carries the footnote just quoted. Both are the Income-tax Act, 2025 and both are headed “Tax on income referred to in sections 102 to 106”. So a departmental page showing 60% is not evidence that the cut never happened — it is a print that predates it. Before you quote a rate off one of these pages, look for an amendment footnote against it, and if there is none, assume a later edition of the same section exists and find it. And it took the rigour out of prosecution. Section 476, which is section 276B of the old Act, section 477, which is section 276BB, and section 478, which is section 276C, now each punish “with simple imprisonment for a term up to two years, or with fine, or with both” where the amount exceeds fifty lakh rupees, with simple imprisonment up to six months where it exceeds ten lakh but not fifty, and “with fine, in any other case”. The footnote on each of the three prints what it replaced — “rigorous imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than three months but which may extend to seven years, and with fine”, the 1961 formula. No minimum sentence, no rigorous imprisonment, and a fine-only floor below ten lakh rupees. Section 476(2) adds that the section does not bite at all where the tax reached the Government on or before the time for filing the statement under section 397(3)(b).
The date that decides your Act is not the date of the notice, the date of the order or the date you were asked to reply. It is the date the income was earned, or, for a deduction, the earlier of credit and payment. Officers, portals and software all made this transition at once, and a reply that answers the right point under the wrong Act is worth nothing — the wrong section number on a challan or an appeal memo is a defect the other side does not have to help you cure.
It also matters because of what it means for old law. Nothing in the repeal takes away the decisions, circulars and arguments built on the 1961 Act for the years that Act still governs, and those years will be assessed, reassessed, penalised and appealed for a decade yet. The 1961 Act is not history; it is the law for every rupee earned up to 31 March 2026.
The Assessing Officer rejected my explanation for cash credits. Must he then prove where the money actually came from before taxing it?
I hold a Mauritius TRC. Can the department still deny me treaty relief on the capital gains?
I paid advance tax for the year but had not filed my return when the search took place. Can the department still call that income undisclosed?
We charge fees for our public utility work. Does that cost us charitable status under s.2(15)?
The only thing behind my reopening notice is the Valuation Officer's report. Is that enough?
Is a notice under s.143(2) a jurisdictional precondition, or merely a procedural step the Assessing Officer can skip?
My return was only processed under 143(1). Does that stop the department reopening it later?
A binding decision that covers my point was never considered when my order was passed. Is that a mistake apparent from the record?
Every page in this library links to what it was written from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
