A communication issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, as F. No. Pr.CCIT(NeAC)/2019-20, dated 30 December 2019.
A short notice from the National e-Assessment Centre giving taxpayers a way to ask questions about the notices it had begun to issue. Faceless assessment under the E-assessment Scheme, 2019 had just started, for assessment year 2018-19 onwards, and an assessee who received a notice had no officer he could telephone. This document sets out an e-mail address and a helpline number, and says exactly what a query must contain.
This one does not fall neatly into the Board's usual classes — it is a letter, a memorandum, a consultation paper or something else the department has published in this collection. What it is, and what weight it carries, is set out below.
The Centre states that, to provide assistance in cases of faceless e-assessment under the E-assessment Scheme, 2019 applicable for assessment year 2018-19 onwards, helpline facilities are provided exclusively for taxpayers to whom notices have been issued by the National e-Assessment Centre. Queries are to go to the e-mail address delhi.ito.hq.pccit.neac@incometax.gov.in, and the e-filing helpline number 1800 180 1961 is given for general queries. An e-mail raising a query must invariably contain the PAN, a soft copy of the notice, and the details of the help required. Queries are to be sent only to that address and not to any other e-mail address, telephone or WhatsApp, as they will be entertained on the stated e-mail and phone only.
The whole point of faceless assessment is that the assessee does not know, and cannot approach, the officer handling his case. That works for the assessment itself but leaves him nowhere to go when a notice is unclear, will not open, or appears to have reached the wrong person. Without a published channel taxpayers were writing to whatever address they could find. This notice creates one channel and closes the others.
The notice is addressed to taxpayers, and it is the department that is bound by it: the Centre has undertaken to answer queries sent to the stated address. It gives the assessee no right of hearing and extends no time limit — a query is not a response to the notice. Nothing in it binds a court or the Tribunal, though the Centre may fairly be held to its own undertaking.
Issued on 30.12.2019 for the E-assessment Scheme, 2019, applicable for assessment year 2018-19 onwards. No end date is stated.
A helpline query does not answer the notice. Time to comply runs on regardless, and the response must still go through the e-filing account. Note the exclusivity too: the Centre says it will entertain queries only on the stated e-mail and phone, so a letter to the jurisdictional officer may go nowhere. Keep the query and any reply on the file.
The e-mail for query should invariably contain following details: - a) PAN b) Soft copy of the notice c) Details of help required.
— the Central Board of Direct Taxes, communication F. No. Pr.CCIT(NeAC)/2019-20, 30 December 2019. Read it in the department’s own PDF.
| Under the Income-tax Act, 1961 | Now, in the Income-tax Act, 2025 |
|---|---|
| section 143 | section 270 |
We charge fees for our public utility work. Does that cost us charitable status under s.2(15)?
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?
The Income-tax Officer examined witnesses behind my back and used their statements against me. Is that material evidence at all?
No s.143(2) notice was issued at all. Does s.292BB save the assessment?
The company I represent amalgamated years ago, the department knew about it, and the assessment order still came in the old company's name. Is that order void, or can the department call it a curable slip?
What here is the Board’s and what is ours. The document is the Central Board of Direct Taxes’ own. Its number, its date and the words quoted above are reproduced from the Board’s own PDF, which is here. Everything else on this page is ours: the plain-English account of what the document is and what it does, the reading of which provision it turns on, the note on what to watch, and the choice of cases. Where our account and the document part, the document governs.
An order of the Board binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board writes to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to an order or an instruction that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves. This is the most common mistake made with this material, and it is worth making twice: a direction of the Board is not a section of the Act.
What we could not settle. The running number after 'Pr.CCIT(NeAC)/2019-20' was not legible in the scan. The document cites no section of the Act; section 143 is given in sections as the provision under which the E-assessment Scheme, 2019 operates.