Five assessment years of ineligibility, plus books and an audit. Section 44AD(4) shuts you out of the section for five assessment years following the year in which you declare profit lower than the presumptive rate, and s.44AD(5) then requires books under s.44AA(2) and an audit under s.44AB for so long as your total income exceeds the basic exemption limit. Section 44AB(e) is the clause the audit is done under.
Section 44AD(4) is the lock-in. In the department's own reproduction it reads: "Where an eligible assessee declares profit for any previous year in accordance with the provisions of this section and he declares profit for any of the five assessment years relevant to the previous year succeeding such previous year not in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1), he shall not be eligible to claim the benefit of the provisions of this section for five assessment years subsequent to the assessment year relevant to the previous year in which the profit has not been declared in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1)."
Read it slowly, because three things are easy to miss. The trigger is having declared under s.44AD in an earlier year and then declaring below the rate in one of the five succeeding assessment years. The exclusion runs for the five assessment years after the year of the lower declaration, so the exposure is six years in all, not five. And the trigger is the declaration, not the assessment - an officer who reduces your income below 8% has not put you into s.44AD(4).
Section 44AD(5) carries the consequence: "Notwithstanding anything contained in the foregoing provisions of this section, an eligible assessee to whom the provisions of sub-section (4) are applicable and whose total income exceeds the maximum amount which is not chargeable to income-tax, shall be required to keep and maintain such books of account and other documents as required under sub-section (2) of section 44AA and get them audited and furnish a report of such audit as required under section 44AB."
That audit is done under clause (e) of s.44AB, not clause (a). Clause (e) applies where the provisions of s.44AD(4) are applicable and the assessee's income exceeds the maximum amount not chargeable to income-tax. The turnover threshold in clause (a) is irrelevant to it - a business with Rs 40 lakh of turnover that has fallen foul of s.44AD(4) is inside clause (e) while a business with Rs 90 lakh of turnover that has not is outside clause (a).
The income condition in both s.44AD(5) and s.44AB(e) is a real filter, not decoration. If total income does not exceed the basic exemption limit, no books and no audit are required even though the lock-in on eligibility still bites. A firm returning a loss is the standard example: there is no income, so it does not exceed the maximum amount not chargeable to tax.
Two things do not trigger the lock-in. Crossing the turnover ceiling takes you out of the definition of eligible business, which is a loss of eligibility rather than a declaration below the rate, and the departmental tutorial does not treat that as engaging sub-section (4). Nor does s.44ADA contain any equivalent lock-in for professionals - a professional who declares below 50% faces books under s.44AA and audit under s.44AB clause (d) for that year, but is not shut out of s.44ADA for later years.
The department's own tutorial puts the whole thing shortly: "If a person opts for presumptive taxation scheme then he is also require to follow the same scheme for next 5 years. If he failed to do so, then presumptive taxation scheme will not be available for him for next 5 years", and "he is required to keep and maintain books of account and he is also liable for tax audit as per section 44AB from the AY in which he opts out from the presumptive taxation scheme."
The decision to step out of s.44AD in a bad year is usually taken by looking only at that year's tax. It is a six-year decision. It also changes the penalty exposure: once s.44AB(e) applies, failure to get the audit done attracts s.271B, and this library already holds several orders where a s.271B penalty turned on whether the assessee was under an audit obligation at all. In a presumptive dispute the first question is therefore not what the turnover was, but whether the assessee ever declared under s.44AD in an earlier year - because without that, sub-section (4) cannot be engaged and clause (e) has nothing to attach to.
The department is taxing me on what I admitted in my statement during the search. Can an addition rest on that statement alone?
Our Uttarakhand assessments add back the service tax ONGC reimbursed to us. Is there a binding answer in that High Court?
We are a foreign company on an approved turnkey power project. We keep books, they are audited, and we recognise revenue on percentage of completion under AS-7. The Assessing Officer has rejected the books under section 145(3) and taxed 10 per cent of our billings under section 44BBB(1). Can he do that?
CPC has processed my return, decided that my receipts belong under s.44ADA at 50 per cent instead of s.44AD at 8 per cent, and raised a demand. Can that be done in a s.143(1) intimation?
The Assessing Officer says my client, who runs a pathology sample collection centre, cannot use s.44AD at all and has added the entire understated receipt. Is that right?
I am a partner in a professional LLP. Can I offer my partner's remuneration under section 44ADA at 50 per cent?
I offered 8% under 44AD for consultancy work. Can the AO push me into 44ADA at 50%?
The Principal Commissioner has revised my client's assessment under s.263 and directed the officer to tax his cash deposits under s.68, although he filed under s.44AD and keeps no books. Can that order stand?
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