Itr-4 : which of these professions qualify for sec 44ada 50% presumptive income

23 July 2018

Hello! On 10.July.18 when I filed my returns for AY 2018-19 under ITR-4 (as a freelance programmer and website developer), I filed my income under Presumptive Taxation Scheme of Section 44ADA, where income is calculated @ 50% of the total gross receipts of the profession.

At the top of the page we had to choose our profession/business from a dropdown list. I picked this option: "14001-Software development" because I couldn't find better keywords anywhere else.

I am now being confused by some people saying "no no that was a business not a profession and the only choices eligible for the 50% ADA thing are in 16xxx series". On the e-filing portal there was absolutely no indication or messaging about this division of the list, and there was no alert / message coming even after choosing the opion about which section to file under.

And that coded dropdown list isn't even mentioned in all the online pages about ITR-4 that I checked out. It's a very big list having 344 options covering all sorts professions and businesses, and I can tell it includes the other sections' professions/businesses too. And I'm searching online for list of professions under 44ADA, getting only a generic code-less list into which subjectively any number of of those 344 options could be included or not, depending on the decider's frame of mind. I'm not being able to find any clear listing of codes from that large list that fall under 44ADA, 44AD or 44AE which are the 3 sections under ITR-4.

I have saved that coded dropdown list on github, and it has a search filter :

Professions/businesses list (344 total) as seen in dropdown in ITR-4

So friends please let me know if I have to file a revision of my ITR-4 and if so, which is the correct option to pick in that mega-list for a freelance programmer / website designer who doesn't make a ton of money.

Also, for benefit of everyone, it would be great if we could clearly divide that coded list into 44AD, 44ADA and 44AE. Or, I would like to know if such a clear division does not exist.