Filing an Income Tax Return is mandatory, and if filed incorrectly, you may get a notice from government authorities. For many taxpayers, receiving such a notice can be a stressful event.
But instances
of citizens across India receiving fake notices and becoming the targets of scammers have come to notice.
The income tax department only sends you an income tax notice in cases of any discrepancies, non-compliance or other issues observed with your ITR filing or if the person filing the ITR exceeded the deadline. Here’s how you can verify if the notice you have received from the income tax department is authentic or fake.
Real Or Fake: How To Identify Your Income Tax Notice
Before sending a defaulter an ITR notice, the Income Tax department follows a number of guidelines and protocols. Upon receiving a notice, an Indian citizen should first check for details to verify if the notice sent to them is fake or not.
First up: do not panic or open any link sent to you via email or SMS by a potential scammer. Then check if your income tax notice has a unique DIN number, which is mandatory for an income tax notice to have. The DIN number can be compared to a fingerprint as it is traceable.
According to the Income Tax Department, “Every communication by the Income Tax department issued on or after 1st October, 2019 shall bear a unique Document Identification Number(DIN). In order to satisfy yourself that the notice/order or any communication received by you is genuine and issued by Income Tax Authority, you can authenticate any notice/order or any communication using this service.”
If a notice doesn’t bear the DIN number, it is not genuine. In such cases, the Income Tax Department says, “the notice/order/letter received by you would be treated as invalid and shall be non est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued. You do not need to take any action or respond to such communication.”
Verify ITR Notice: Step-By-Step Guide
One can also authenticate the order issued by the Income Tax authorities on the e-Filing portal. It can be done using the Authenticate Notice / Order Issued by the ITD service. Here is a step-by-step guide to verify the notice you have received.
Step 1: Visit the Income Tax Portal (https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/)
Step 2: Navigate to the Quick Links section on the homepage and then click ‘Authenticate notice/order issued by ITD.’
Step 3: Enter the DIN number and the registered mobile number of your choice. One can also authenticate the notice via PAN, document type, assessment year, issue date and mobile number.
Step 4: Provide the OTP you received after filling in all the details.
Step 5: On being validated, if the income tax notice is real, the screen will display a success message. Or else, it will show no record found for the given document number.
