Not by itself, though it matters. Long cultivation supports the claim that the land is agricultural, and that question has to be settled first. Once it is agricultural land, whether the sale is taxable turns on a separate test: its location against the relevant municipality or cantonment board having the prescribed population, and the prescribed aerial distance from that body's limits. Farming history answers the first question. It has nothing to say about the second.

Only if that municipality has a population of ten thousand or more. Below that figure, agricultural land inside its limits is not a capital asset, and agricultural land outside its limits is not caught by any distance either. A small municipality is not the same thing as a taxable location, and this is the point most often got backwards.

In a straight line, for assessment year 2014-15 onwards. For earlier years still open, the shortest road distance governs. CBDT Circular No. 17/2015 dated 6 October 2015 accepted this and directed that no further departmental appeals be filed on the point and that pending ones be withdrawn. Officers do still raise it, and the circular binds them.

The last census whose figures were published before the tax year began. That is still the 2011 Census. Census 2027 is under way, but figures that have not been published cannot be used. A town that has grown well past a threshold since 2011 still carries its 2011 figure, and will until the new figures are published and a tax year begins after that.

Yes. The registrar or sub-registrar reports property transactions to the department, and from 1 April 2026 the reporting threshold is ₹45 lakh, measured either by the amount or by the stamp duty value, so a sale priced below the guideline value can still be caught. The reported transaction can then be reflected in your Annual Information Statement whether or not you mention it in your return.

If an AIS entry is incorrect, duplicated or does not belong to you, submit the appropriate feedback on the portal and retain the supporting records. Do not alter a correct return merely to match an incorrect AIS entry. Reconcile AIS with your own contract notes, broker statements and the legally correct computation.

A return can be filed while AIS feedback is pending, but it must contain the income and tax details that are legally correct. A later change in AIS or TIS does not automatically revise an already filed return. If the filed return becomes incorrect as a result, a revised return or another appropriate remedy may be required.

Confirm the assessment year, your residential status, the nature of your income and the applicable ITR form before you start. Tax rates, deductions, rebate limits and the forms themselves change each year, so last year's form is not a safe default. If you have foreign assets or foreign-source income, note that ITR-1 and ITR-4 may not be appropriate for you.

The new regime under section 115BAC is the default, but the old regime remains available subject to applicable conditions, and those with business or professional income face separate conditions for switching. Compare both for the year before deciding. Under the new regime, commonly claimed deductions including sections 80C, 80D, 80G and 80E are generally unavailable, though certain deductions such as eligible NPS employer contributions may continue.

Match the figures in Form 26AS against your Form 16 and Form 16A before you rely on either. If a credit is missing or incorrect, work out whether the mistake sits in your own records or in the deductor's statement, and where necessary ask the deductor to file a correction. Form 26AS will update once that correction goes through.

No. Instruction No. 1916 sets out the weights officers need not seize during a search. It says nothing about how much you may own. The Ministry of Finance press release of 1 December 2016 states that there is no limit on holding gold jewellery or ornaments acquired from explained sources of income, inheritance included.

No. Treat the instruction as support for an explanation, not a substitute for one. In V.G.P. Ravidas v. ACIT (2015) 370 ITR 364 the Madras High Court held that the instruction does not by itself render jewellery explained. Other High Courts have held that the weights carry evidentiary value where the family has placed material on record.

The Tribunal at Chennai has held that it does, in DCIT v. Dr. Murugu Sundaram, ITA No. 3086/Chny/2018, dated 2 November 2022, extending the benchmark to minor family members on the facts before it. The relief depended on family composition and the evidence placed on record.

There is Tribunal authority for it. In Ram Prakash Mahawar v. DCIT [2020] 115 taxmann.com 241 (Jaipur), jewellery proved by purchase documents or recorded in the books was excluded first, and the benchmark under Instruction No. 1916 was allowed on top of it. Officers commonly net the two together instead, so the point should be taken, with the supporting bills attached, in the first reply. Whether it is accepted still depends on the facts and the forum.

If jewellery is ultimately treated as undisclosed income in a search assessment, the applicable tax rate is generally 60%, apart from surcharge and cess, with interest or penalty possible in specified circumstances. The final liability depends on the date of the search, the return filed, the amount disclosed and the explanation and evidence accepted by the department.

Count the hospital's sources of income over a year: outpatients, the theatre, the laboratory, the scan centre, the pharmacy, the ambulance, alongside your own rent, dividends, bank interest and gains on shares. Much of this is already reported to the department by banks, brokers, registrars and others, and your return is compared against it. A notice usually means one line did not match, often an amount that belongs to the hospital but appears against your personal PAN. Most such notices close on a proper reconciliation.

Not necessarily. Your financial statements and income-tax return disclose professional receipts according to the applicable accounting and return requirements, while your GST returns disclose exempt healthcare receipts and taxable heads on their own basis. The three records classify and report transactions differently, so a difference between them is not by itself an error. What matters is that each difference can be explained, stream by stream, before it draws a query.

Room rent is the exception people miss. A non-ICU room charged above ₹5,000 a day attracts GST at 5% on the whole room charge, with no input credit, while ICU stays remain exempt whatever the charge. That boundary has to sit inside the billing software, because where it does not, a year of room charges can land on the wrong side of the return, and the reconciliation then has to be built backwards from the bills.

Medicines supplied as part of inpatient treatment are ordinarily part of the exempt composite healthcare service, while medicines sold separately to outpatients or walk-in customers are taxable at the applicable rate. The same medicine can sit on either side of that line depending on who it was billed to and when, so the two streams need to be tracked separately in the pharmacy's own records.

It turns on whether the receipt has already been shown in the hospital's books. If it has, the reply is a reconciliation between your personal return and the hospital's accounts, not a dispute about the money itself. Keep the hospital's ledger entry ready before you reply, since that is usually what settles the question.

Form 104 is for a trust that has not yet started its charitable or religious activities and has not been registered before under the earlier income-tax provisions. If the trust has already started its activities, Form 105 is the right form. Opening a bank account, obtaining a PAN or registering the deed does not by itself mean that activities have commenced.

The trust may issue an ordinary receipt acknowledging any donation received after it is formed. What it must not do is represent that the donor is entitled to a tax deduction, unless the required donor approval is actually in force and the prescribed reporting and certification requirements are met. Where provisional approval is applied for along with registration and the order in Form 106 is received, donors who receive the Form 114 certificate may then claim the deduction.

The trust deed, the certificate of registration with the Registrar, the PAN of the trust, FCRA registration if held, and a note describing what the trust plans to do. Where accounts exist for earlier years in which returns were not filed, those accounts should also be kept ready, with a signed nil declaration for any year where there are no accounts.

File Form 105 within six months of the date on which activities commence. Do not wait for the three-year provisional period to end. Record the exact date on which activities begin, for example the date of the first medical camp or the first beneficiary assisted, since that date starts the six-month clock.

Missing the deadline is serious. If the delay is not condoned, the trust may face additional tax on its accreted income, broadly linked to the value of the trust's assets after applying the statutory rules. This is not a fine, it is a substantial additional tax that can far exceed the trust's annual surplus.

No. A valid and uncancelled registration under section 12A, 12AA or 12AB continues to the expiry date printed on the certificate. It does not become invalid merely because the new Act has come into force. The only dates that matter are the expiry date and the point six months before it.

It is not. The document is good to the date printed on it, whatever Act it refers to on its face. That said, this is not a reason to let the renewal date drift, since the expiry date still governs and still needs to be tracked.

Where both registration and donor approval require renewal, they can be applied for through the same Form No. 105, selecting registration, approval or both, as applicable. The department then passes two separate orders in Form No. 107, one for each, each with its own 16-digit Unique Registration Number.

Not automatically. The continuity applies only to a registration that was valid and uncancelled. Where the registration had already lapsed, the institution applies afresh under section 332. Where the lapsed registration had been granted before 1 April 2021, a specific route for condonation of delay exists under section 332(9).

An uncondoned failure to apply within the prescribed time can have serious consequences, including possible exposure to tax on accreted income under section 352. The precise consequences depend on the category of application and whether the delay is condoned. A delayed case should be examined professionally without waiting for the registration to expire.

No. Filing Form 113 is mandatory for a covered organisation that has received reportable donations. A donor's deduction claim is matched against what the trust reported, and if the trust does not file, or files with errors, the donor's claim may not match the department's records.

Usually, Form 114 is generated after Form 113 is filed and processed. The portal also permits the trust to generate a Pre-ARN during the year and issue the certificate in advance, but certificates issued through Pre-ARN must later be included in Form 113 when filed.

No. The deduction is available only for a donation made as a sum of money. Gifts in kind, including furniture, medicines, books or equipment, do not qualify. Record the gift in the accounts and acknowledge it to the donor, but do not issue a Form 114 certificate for it.

File a correction statement in Form 113 with the right particulars, then issue the corrected Form 114 to the donor. Corrections should be made before the donor's return is processed wherever possible.

A late fee of ₹200 applies for every day of delay, subject to the statutory limit, payable before the late filing goes through. A separate penalty of ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 may also apply under section 461, though no penalty applies where the fee and interest are paid and the statement is filed within one month of the due date.

No. Registration under section 332 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 is an income-tax registration. Entry 1 of Notification No. 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate) exempts charitable activities as narrowly defined, but advertising is not among them. The two registers are separate, and income-tax exemption does not carry across to GST.

Circular No. 116/35/2019-GST addresses donations from individual donors, and its title, opening paragraph and both illustrations deal with individuals, not companies. Its underlying principle, the absence of quid pro quo, may support corporate acknowledgements as well, but no binding authority has settled the point. Record it as an available argument, not as settled protection.

Where the arrangement amounts to sponsorship, GST is generally payable by the corporate recipient under reverse charge, unless the trust supplying the service is itself a body corporate, in which case forward charge applies from 16 January 2025. Advertising or promotional services must be examined separately and should not automatically be treated as sponsorship.

Even where the corporate donor remits the tax, the value of the supply remains in the trust's aggregate turnover under section 2(6) of the CGST Act. A trust that also makes exempt supplies alongside a branded corporate contribution may cross the registration threshold and become liable to register and file returns, even though it remits no GST itself.

Look at what the board does, not what the donor intended. An individual name on a simple plaque with no return promise is ordinarily low risk. A company name in plain text with no logo is fact-sensitive and should be documented. A logo, tagline, product reference or negotiated external prominence carries significant GST risk, and naming rights or media coverage promised in the agreement point toward a taxable commercial supply.