question

Understanding Notice under section 143(1)

Notice or intimation under section 143(1) is a computer generated record. The income tax department validates each tax return with its own record and this notice usually only points out apparent mistakes found out by the system.

This intimation has two columns ‘As provided by taxpayer in the Return of Income’ and ‘As computed under section 143(1)’ where the amounts are compared for these – income under various heads and deductions, TDS and self tax payments. You can run through each of these amounts and find out where the discrepancy is. It could be that a certain TDS has been disallowed or there is a mismatch in self-assessment tax payments, a rounding off error. A final tax due or refundable is computed.

When there is no mismatch

Its likely that all of the fields are matching and there is no tax due or refundable – in such a case you can safely assume the intimation to be an acknowledgement of your tax return. No further action is required from your side.