What does an income tax notice mean?
Usually very little. A notice is normally the department's routine way of telling you something about your return — a mismatch, a missing detail, an adjustment. It is a communication, not an accusation, and most are closed simply by responding on time with the right documents.
The Income Tax Department processes crores of returns largely through automated systems. Those systems cross-check what you filed against information the department already holds — salary reported by your employer, TDS credited against your PAN, interest reported by banks, high-value transactions reported by financial institutions. When any two numbers do not line up, the system generates a communication.
That is what most "notices" are. A refund is being adjusted. A deduction you claimed does not match the record. A form was left incomplete. None of that means anyone has decided you did something wrong — it means the department wants your side of a number.
Three things decide how serious a notice is: what it asks you to do, the date by which it asks you to do it, and whether it raises a demand. Find those three things on the document before you do anything else. The section number is useful, but the substance is what matters.
How do you check if an income tax notice is genuine?
Every genuine communication carries a Document Identification Number (DIN). Use the free pre-login "Authenticate notice/order issued by ITD" service on incometax.gov.in — enter the DIN and your mobile number, or your PAN with document details, and verify using the OTP.
The service sits on the e-filing portal home page and does not require you to log in. It is available to registered and unregistered users alike, and it works for a notice, order, summons, letter or any correspondence issued by an income tax authority. There are two ways in:
- By DIN — enter the Document Identification Number printed on the communication, plus your mobile number, and confirm with the OTP sent to that number.
- By PAN — enter your PAN, the document type, the assessment year, the date of issue and your mobile number, then confirm with the OTP.
If the portal cannot find the document, treat the communication as suspect. A document with no DIN, or a DIN that does not authenticate, is your signal to stop and verify through the portal or your assessing officer rather than acting on it.
Fraudsters send convincing "tax notice" PDFs, then follow up by phone, WhatsApp or video call posing as officers — the same playbook as the digital arrest scam. The department does not phone you demanding immediate payment, does not ask for money into a personal or "verification" account, and does not threaten arrest over a call. Any tax payment goes only through the e-Pay Tax service on incometax.gov.in. See our guide on digital arrest scams for how these calls are run.
Not sure what your notice means?
Ask Legal Setu — free, no account needed.What are the common types of income tax notice?
Most fall into five groups: an intimation after your return is processed, a defective-return or clarification request, a notice asking you to explain income or transactions, a scrutiny assessment notice, and a demand notice. Each carries its own deadline and needs a different reply.
People still search for these by their old section numbers — "143(1) notice", "notice under section 148" — so those labels appear below. But describe them by effect and you will always know what you are looking at, whatever number is printed on the page.
1. An intimation after your return is processed
Commonly searched as a 143(1) intimation. This is the most common communication of all and it is sent to most filers. It is a side-by-side statement: what you declared, and what the department computed. If the two match, nothing is required from you. If they differ, the intimation shows whether that produces a refund, no change, or an amount payable. Read the comparison columns before assuming there is a problem.
2. A defective return or a request for clarification
Commonly searched as a 139(9) defective return notice. Something in the filing is incomplete or internally inconsistent — a schedule left blank, a mismatch between income heads, the wrong form. You are asked to correct and re-file within the time given. This is administrative, not adversarial, but if it is not fixed within the period allowed the return can be treated as not having been filed at all.
3. A notice asking you to explain income or transactions
Commonly searched as a 142(1) inquiry notice or, where the department believes income has escaped assessment, a notice under section 148 for reassessment. Here the department is asking for documents, accounts or an explanation — often about a specific transaction it has information on. Reassessment notices are the serious end of this category and are worth professional help.
4. A scrutiny assessment notice
Commonly searched as a 143(2) scrutiny notice. Your return has been selected for detailed examination. This is a proceeding, not a single question: expect a sequence of requisitions for documents and explanations, conducted through the portal. Take it seriously, keep to every date, and get a professional involved.
5. A demand notice
Commonly searched as a section 156 demand notice under the old Act. This states a sum determined as payable and the time within which to pay. You are not obliged to simply accept it — the portal lets you agree with the demand, disagree with it, or agree in part, with reasons. What you should not do is nothing.
The section numbers above are the ones people search for, and they refer to the Income-tax Act 1961. Section numbering changed under the Income-tax Act 2025. Go by the section actually cited on your own notice, and read the numbers above as descriptions of a notice type rather than as the current provision.
How do you respond to an income tax notice?
Log in at incometax.gov.in, open "Pending Actions" then "e-Proceedings", find the notice, read exactly what is asked, and submit your reply with supporting documents before the date stated. Save the acknowledgement. Need longer? Request more time through the portal.
Respond by the date printed on the notice. Everything else — the right documents, the perfect wording, professional help — is easier to fix later than a missed deadline is.
Deadlines on a notice matter.
₹99* books a verified expert, briefed on your case before the call.*₹99 is the platform booking fee. Your advocate’s own fee is quoted and agreed before the call.What happens if you ignore an income tax notice?
It rarely goes away. The department can proceed without your side of the story — completing the assessment on the information it already holds, raising a demand, adding interest, and starting penalty proceedings. A late reply is still far better than no reply.
The practical consequence of silence is that the department decides the matter on its own material. An explanation you could have given — that the "unreported" credit was a loan repayment, that the deduction was genuine, that the transaction was reported in a different year — never enters the record. Interest and penalty exposure follow the demand, and recovery action becomes possible once a demand is final.
Amounts and timelines depend on the provision applied and the facts of your case, so do not take a figure you read online as yours. What is consistent is the direction of travel: an unanswered notice gets worse, and an answered one usually gets resolved.
What not to do
- Do not ignore it — including an intimation you do not understand. If nothing is required, confirm that; do not assume it.
- Do not panic-pay a demand you do not understand. Paying does not automatically close a dispute, and the portal specifically allows you to disagree, or partly disagree, with reasons.
- Do not deal with a phone or WhatsApp "officer". Proceedings run through the portal. A caller pressing you to pay, share an OTP, install an app or stay on a video call is running a scam.
- Do not file a hurried revised return in response to a notice without checking whether a revised return is the correct remedy at all — often the reply belongs in e-Proceedings instead.
Have income tax section numbers changed?
Yes. The Income-tax Act 2025 replaces the Income-tax Act 1961 with effect from 1 April 2026, and provisions were renumbered — the rebate long known as Section 87A now sits at Section 156. Always go by the section printed on your own notice.
This is the single biggest reason to distrust older articles about tax notices. The 2025 Act was a structural reorganisation as well as a renaming: the familiar numbering of the 1961 Act was not carried across, and virtually every provision moved. Substantively, much of the law was carried forward — the rebate provisions, for instance, are described as functionally the same, simply renumbered — but the labels people have used for decades no longer point where they used to.
The collision worth knowing about: "Section 156" meant the demand notice under the 1961 Act, and now also names the rebate provision in the 2025 Act. A search result about "Section 156" can therefore be about either of two completely unrelated things, depending on which Act it refers to.
Read the section number and the Act named on your own notice, together. If a notice cites the Income-tax Act 2025, an article explaining the old 1961 section of the same number may be describing something entirely different. When in doubt, go by what the notice asks you to do — that never changes with renumbering.
Do you need a CA or lawyer to reply to a tax notice?
Often not. A simple intimation or a defective-return fix can usually be handled yourself on the portal. Get professional help for scrutiny, reassessment, large or disputed demands, anything about the source of money, or any notice you do not fully understand.
Handle it yourself when the notice is a routine intimation that matches your records, a straightforward defective-return correction, or a small mismatch you can evidence with a Form 16, an AIS entry or a bank statement.
Bring in a chartered accountant or a tax lawyer when:
- Your return has been selected for scrutiny assessment, or you have received a reassessment notice about income said to have escaped assessment.
- A demand has been raised that is large relative to your finances, or that you believe is wrong.
- You are being asked to explain the source of a deposit, an investment or a high-value transaction.
- Business, capital gains, foreign income or foreign assets are involved.
- You simply do not understand what is being asked — that alone is a good enough reason.
Authenticate the DIN → identify what the notice asks → collect the documents that answer it → reply through e-Proceedings before the date → keep the acknowledgement → escalate to a professional if it is scrutiny, reassessment or a serious demand. Almost every routine notice ends at step four.
Official sources
The official portal: log in for Pending Actions and e-Proceedings, and use "Authenticate notice/order issued by ITD" and e-Pay Tax from the home page.
Authenticate the Notice issued by ITD — official user manualStep-by-step instructions for the pre-login authentication service, including both the DIN route and the PAN route.