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AskSolique - AI tax research platform for India

Practice area · Income Tax

Two Acts, one right answer.

Income Tax Notices, ITR Filing and TDS Returns - Answered With Citations

The 2025 Act renumbered almost everything. Cite the wrong section in an opinion and it shows. Get the position under both Acts, tied to the exact provision and case law.

Income tax in India is levied under the Income-tax Act, 1961 and the new Income-tax Act, 2025, covering the taxation of individuals, firms and companies. AskSolique answers income-tax questions with the precise section, rule and judicial authority cited - and maps the old and new provisions side by side.

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An income tax scrutiny notice under Section 143(2). An intimation raising a demand under Section 143(1). A demand notice under Section 156. A TDS return that has to be revised because a deductee's PAN was reported wrong. Which ITR form applies this year. The questions differ, but the risk behind them is the same: an answer you cannot trace back to the section is an answer you cannot rely on.

Why Income Tax is hard

Sixty years of amendments, read together with the case law.

Income tax is a six-decade accretion of amendments, provisos, circulars and thousands of judgments interpreting each line. Residential status turns on a precise day-count with carve-outs for citizens and high earners; TDS has a different rate and condition for every kind of payment; capital gains splits by asset class and holding period; deductions come loaded with provisos that decide whether they apply at all. The section alone rarely settles it - the controlling reading usually lives in the Tribunal or High Court decision that qualifies it.

What's broken in the way you work today

You feel this on every opinion during the transition.

  1. The famous section numbers moved

    Almost every provision was renumbered in 2025. Muscle-memory citations to the 1961 numbers are now wrong, and there is no built-in map warning you.

  2. General AI guesses at conditions, not just sections

    Ask a chatbot whether a deduction or exemption applies and it returns a fluent yes or no, skipping the proviso or condition that actually decides the answer - and reads exactly like a correct one.

  3. Judicial position is scattered

    The right answer often turns on a Tribunal or High Court ruling that qualifies the section. Finding the controlling case, and whether it still holds, is the slow part.

  4. Every note gets double-checked

    Because no one is sure which Act the client expects, routine advice gets escalated or re-verified, adding delay to work the team could own.

What happens if nothing changes

A wrong citation costs more than a correction.

In income-tax work, the exposure is twofold. A substantively wrong position - a mis-read deduction, a missed TDS, a wrong capital-gains treatment - flows into the return and surfaces as demand, interest and penalty on assessment, often years later. And a citation to a superseded section number quietly erodes the one thing an advisor sells: authority. Doing nothing means shipping opinions that are either exposed on the merits or dated on their face, on the highest-volume advisory work you do.

What has to change

The provision, the case law and both Act numbers - together.

Stop reasoning from a single stale copy of the Act and stop treating the bare section as the answer. The position should arrive with the exact provision, every condition and proviso that qualifies it, and the controlling judicial authority - from a corpus maintained as the Act and the case law move.

Notices, and what each one actually is

An intimation under Section 143(1) is a computation the department has arrived at from your return, not an assessment - which is why the response is a reconciliation rather than a defence. A notice under Section 143(2) opens scrutiny and asks you to substantiate. A notice under Section 156 is a formal demand for tax already determined as payable, with its own payment window. The distinction decides what you can contest and how long you have, and it is the first thing AskSolique establishes from the notice itself.

Where returns go wrong before a notice ever arrives

Most notices to salaried taxpayers trace back to a small number of avoidable filing mistakes: a mismatch against Form 26AS or the AIS, interest on a let-out property claimed in full, capital gains left unreported, or simply the wrong ITR form for the income actually earned. Late filing carries its own fee, and a return filed on the wrong form can be treated as defective. Each of these is cheaper to check before filing than to answer afterwards.

TDS returns - filing, revising and the cost of being late

TDS returns are filed quarterly, and a late filing fee accrues for every day of delay until the return is actually filed, subject to the amount of tax deducted. A return already filed can be revised: you file a correction statement against the original return's token number, changing only the deductee, challan or amount that was reported wrong, and each correction has to run against the latest accepted statement rather than against the original. Revising promptly matters, because an uncorrected mismatch flows straight through to the deductee's Form 26AS and generates the next query. AskSolique returns the position on due dates, revision and exposure cited to the governing provision, and carries both the 1961 and 2025 section numbers through the transition.

Genuine use cases

The questions that land on an income-tax desk - answered, cited.

Real fact patterns from direct-tax work. Each returns the position with the exact provision and, where it matters, the 1961 ↔ 2025 mapping.

CLIENT MEETING

Let-out property, full interest claimed.

The client wants the entire loan interest deducted. AskSolique confirms Sec 24(b) allows it in full, then flags the Sec 71(3A) cap on setting off the resulting loss - the number the client actually gets.

Cited to Sec 24(b) & Sec 71(3A), IT Act 1961

WITHHOLDING DESK

Fee paid to a foreign vendor, no TDS deducted yet.

Before the payment goes out, AskSolique confirms Sec 195 applies, pulls the applicable DTAA rate, and lists the TRC and Form 10F the vendor still needs to furnish.

Cited to Sec 195, IT Act 1961

M&A DESK

Merger structured as a share swap.

Promoters ask if the swap triggers capital-gains tax now. AskSolique works through the exchange, the cost of acquisition carried forward, and the conditions that keep the scheme tax-neutral - before the term sheet is signed.

Cited to Sec 47, IT Act 1961

What your team gets out of it

Time saved goes straight to the judgment calls that need a partner, not a timesheet.

  • Every condition, not just the section

    A deduction or exemption comes back with the proviso and condition that actually governs it, with the Income Tax Act 2025 section mapping beside the 1961 numbering wherever the transition matters.

  • Grounded in case law

    Answers carry the controlling Tribunal, High Court or Supreme Court authority, not just the bare section.

  • Answer more in-house

    Routine questions - residential status, TDS, deductions - come back cited and ready to sign, without escalation.

  • Defensible on assessment

    Every conclusion traces to the exact provision and authority, ready for an income tax notice reply format you can defend on assessment.

Ask it your way

A quick check, a multi-part question, a full scenario - each comes back with the exact provision cited.

  • Simple

    Is interest on a home loan for a let-out property fully deductible?

  • Multi-part

    An Indian citizen who worked abroad for several years returned to India part-way through the tax year, with foreign-company RSUs vesting before and after the move - determine the person's residential status, the Indian tax treatment and sourcing of each vest, and any foreign-tax-credit or disclosure obligations.

  • Scenario-based

    Two listed companies are merging through a share swap - shareholders of the transferor get shares in the transferee, no cash changes hands, and the transferee also carries forward the transferor's accumulated losses and unabsorbed depreciation. Work through whether the swap is tax-neutral for shareholders, the cost of acquisition they carry forward, and the conditions the merger has to satisfy for the transferee to inherit those losses.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can AskSolique explain the difference between a Section 143(1) intimation and a Section 156 demand notice - and tell me which Act governs mine?

Yes - and this is where the dual-Act coverage earns its place. A 143(1) intimation is CPC's automated check on every return; a resulting demand is a Section 156 notice giving 30 days to pay. Under the Income-tax Act, 2025 those become Section 270(1) and Section 289. Give it the assessment year and it tells you which applies.

Can AskSolique tell me whether a notice I have received is routine processing or an actual income tax scrutiny notice?

Yes. A 143(1) intimation and a scrutiny notice carry different sections, different timelines and different consequences if ignored, and confusing the two is one of the costlier mistakes taxpayers make. Put the notice details in and it identifies which one you are looking at, and the deadline that applies.

Can AskSolique explain why a salaried employee with TDS already deducted still received a notice?

Yes. Employer TDS only covers what the employer knows about, so a second income source, unreported bank interest or a PAN mismatch shows up as a discrepancy against your AIS or 26AS. Give it your income sources and the notice, and it traces the mismatch to the entry causing it.

Can AskSolique work out the penalty for late filing of ITR on my actual numbers?

Yes. Section 234F's late fee depends on your total income and how late you file, and it stacks with 234A interest and the loss of carry-forward rights - three provisions that are easy to under-count by hand. Give it your income and filing date and it works out the full exposure.

Which ITR form should I file?

The form follows your income sources, residential status and whether you carry business or capital gains income. Set out what you earned in the year and the Research Centre works to the correct ITR form with the governing rule cited, rather than leaving you to match your facts to a form-selection chart.

What are the most common ITR filing mistakes AskSolique can catch before I file?

The recurring ones are income that appears in AIS or 26AS but not in the return, the wrong ITR form for the income mix, missed carry-forward of losses, and unclaimed TDS credit. Put your figures in and it reconciles them against the provisions that govern each, before the return goes in.

Can AskSolique track TDS return due dates and flag the penalty exposure before I miss one?

Yes. TDS returns are due quarterly, and a missed deadline triggers Section 234E's Rs 200-a-day fee plus possible Section 271H exposure past the one-month grace window. Give it your filing date against the due date and it calculates the fee and the discretionary-penalty risk together.

How do I revise a TDS return that has already been filed?

A correction statement is filed against the original token number, and what can be corrected depends on whether the error is in the challan, the deductee detail or the PAN. Describe the error and it works to the correction type that applies and the consequences of leaving it, with the provision cited.

Put an income-tax question of your own to it.

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