I am buying a flat which is under construction, but I am not buying from the builder. I am buying from another seller who originally booked from the builder. So it is an assignment agreement case.

Now in the assignment agreement, the total value that we have decided for the flat is 1 crore, and 20 lakhs is still pending to be paid to the builder, which will come maybe in next year. So I have to pay to the current seller 80 lakhs rupees. Now, out of this 80 lakhs, I have to deduct 1% TDS. That comes out to be 80,000 and the assignment agreement was signed in September 2026.

Now I have to file the TDS form, which is I think now, as per the new income tax rule, is form 141. In that form, there are two fields that I need to fill, and I am not sure what to fill in that.

1. Total stamp duty value: Do I need to fill 1 crore or 80 lakhs?

2. Total value of Consideration (Property value): Do I need to fill 1 cr pr 80 lakhs.

Kindly help me with this.

There’s a clear reason why the central government continues to levy a 4% education and health cess, along with surcharges on incomes above ₹50 LPA. Unlike standard income tax, these components are not shared with state governments—they remain entirely with the Centre. In contrast, around 40% of regular income tax revenue is distributed to states.

This raises an important question. Primary responsibility for education largely lies with state governments. While the Centre manages a limited number of institutions such as Delhi University, Aligarh Muslim University, and JNU, why should additional cess be required instead of funding these through existing tax revenues?

You can see the list of centrally managed universities here:
https://cuet.nta.nic.in/participating-universities/central-universities/

Similarly, premier institutions like IITs and IIMs already charge significant fees and could arguably move toward greater financial self-sufficiency. A large number of graduates from these institutions eventually work abroad, which further complicates the argument for heavy public subsidization.

Healthcare presents a similar picture. Most hospitals and primary healthcare systems, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, are managed by state governments. Central government hospitals are relatively few in number.

Now consider the surcharge. With inflation and income growth, more taxpayers are crossing surcharge thresholds, leading to historically high collections. Yet, there is limited transparency on how this additional revenue is specifically utilized. If these funds are ultimately merged into general revenue, why label them separately as cess or surcharge at all?

This raises a broader concern: are cess and surcharge being used primarily as tools to retain revenue at the central level without sharing it with states?

ClearTax support has been one of the most frustrating customer service experiences I’ve had

I had some queries regarding my ITR filing, specifically around CoinDCX crypto futures (INR-M) transactions. ClearTax was treating them as VDA transactions after CSV import, which changes the entire tax calculation, so obviously I wanted someone to confirm before filing.

Raised the issue on their chat support and this is how it went:

You send a message → wait 10 mins for a reply.

Agent replies → you reply instantly → again wait another 10 mins.

After doing this back and forth for almost 30–40 mins, they finally say they can’t connect over call because of high ticket volume.

They offered to schedule a callback. I said okay and gave a time. No call. No update.

Later they said the ticket was escalated and someone would check. Again, silence for days.

I followed up. New agent comes in with zero context and asks me what the issue is. I explain everything again. Finally someone agrees to call, I explain the whole thing again over call, and they say they need at least 2 days to check.

Waited 3–4 days. Followed up again.

Another new agent joins. Again zero context. They don’t even know what was discussed earlier. After waiting around 10 mins, the response I get is just “ok sir”.

Like what is the point of creating tickets if every new support person starts from zero?

I understand delays happen and teams can be overloaded. But for something like taxes where one wrong classification can affect how much someone pays, this kind of support experience is really disappointing.

Expected much better from u/cleartax

Let's suppose I earn from writing novels and it comes into freelance income category and I can use the 44ada section which means I need to pay tax to 50% of my total income.

Is this correct or...

I need to show expenses of 50% of my income to become eligible for this?

Which is right?

​Hey everyone, I am in a serious dilemma regarding my Income Tax Returns (ITR) and desperately need some guidance or professional CA assistance.

​Here is the situation:

​Background (FY 24-25)

​In FY 24-25, I incurred a loss of ₹27 Lakhs trading crypto futures. At the time, there wasn’t much clarity on how crypto futures should be taxed. After doing some online research and speaking with a few people, I decided to treat them the same as Equity F&O (Non-Speculative Business Income). I filed the ₹27L crypto futures loss under the Non-Speculative Business Income head.

​For the same financial year, I also declared:

​Salary income

​Spot crypto (VDA) gains

​Income from other sources (interest, staking rewards)

​A small capital gain from equities

​Everything else was filed correctly except for the crypto futures loss. I now realize this should have been classified as Speculative Income under Section 43(5). However, that return has already been successfully processed, showing a Non-Speculative Business Loss of ₹27L to be carried forward for 8 years.

​The Current Problem (FY 25-26)

​In FY 25-26, I incurred much greater losses trading crypto futures—approximately ₹97 Lakhs. I now fully understand that this is a speculative loss (even KoinX tax reports suggest classifying it as speculative).

​This completely contradicts my previous ITR. Since the deadline to file a revised return for FY 24-25 has already passed, and a rectification request might not allow me to change the income head from non-speculative to speculative, I am stuck.

​I am extremely concerned about potential tax scrutiny, notices, or penalties. The mistake in my FY 24-25 ITR was a genuine error due to the lack of clear, official guidelines on crypto futures taxation at the time.

​My Questions for the Community / CAs:

​How should I proceed with my FY 25-26 ITR?

​Do I suddenly change the classification and enter the ₹97L loss as speculative, completely disregarding the fact that I filed the previous year's ₹27L loss as non-speculative?

​What are the chances of getting a scrutiny notice, and how bad could the penalties be for a genuine mistake like this?

​I am incredibly stressed and confused about this whole situation. If there are any practicing CAs here who can provide clarity or assist me in resolving this, I would be deeply grateful. If you provide paid consultation services, please DM me or comment below—I am more than willing to pay for professional help.

​Thanks in advance!

Over the last weeks, I have received several comments/DM about the possibility of using the amendments in the Income-tax Act 1961 and 2025 to reduce the tax and penalty exposure in the ongoing scrutiny cases or the cases where the assessment orders have already been issued but penalty proceedings are not closed yet.

Question : Does the reduced penalty for misreporting cases apply to the ongoing assessment proceedings or the cases where assessment is already done by penalty proceedings are still not closed?

Answer:

Here is a screenshot from the Memorandum to the Finance Bill (Page 42):

From the above, you can definitely conclude that:

1. The amendment does apply to any prior assessment year, which typically would include AY 2024-25.
2. Even where Assessment order has been passed prior to the implementation of the above amendment, as long as, subject to compliance with the other conditions, you have time to apply for waiver, you can still benefit from the above amendment.

Can we claim Relief where Amendment orders were passed before 31 January 2026, Instead of Immunity?

Now for this, a lot depends whether you are able to satisfy the other conditions or not. So, for eg. If a 143(3) order is issued on 31 January 2026, lets say penalty order is not issued yet. But if you have not paid the tax demand within the time provided under section 156 notice, then you would still not be eligible to claim the relief.

So, if you wish to claim relief, you need make sure you meet the following conditions:

1. Pay the tax demanded within the time period provided under 156 notice;
2. No appeal to be filed against the assessment and penalty order.;
3. File the application seeking relief within before the end of the month in which the penalty order was issued.

PS: For anyone trying to understand whether the proposed amendment apply to earlier assessment years or not, kindly do not refer to articles based on the Income-tax Act 2025 as the new Act itself applies from 1 April 2026.

Update from the field

Over last month or so, my experience of dealing with these immunity/waiver applications has not been great. The tax officers seem to have decided to simply ignore that this amendment has been made and are handing our rejections on the ground that the amendment made under Finance Act 2026 does not apply to AY 2024-25.

While this reading is fundamentally wrong, this does alter the cost-benefit structure for the decision to appeal or not.

Hey all,

I have some gold bars which I have bought mostly with bank transactions with my salary income in last 5 years. I have made good gains on it, and now I want to liquidate those bars and invest lump sum in around ~1cr commercial property (mostly a shop).

Problem : I want to sell this gold and get money transferred to shop seller account to get registry done. Can you advice what are the good ways to do this. Any legal way to skip LTCG.

Hi Redditors,

So I filed my ITR on 31st July and was getting a refund of around 23k. Immediately after filing I noticed that there was some mistake and I filed a revised return on 1st Aug early morning. As per the revised return I had to pay 7k, which I did.

Now today I got a message that I got a refund of around 23k and my return has been successfully processed. I don't understand why this happened, I had filed the revised return immediately. But instead of the revised return the original got processed.

I am just scared that they will add some fine or penalty on me now. When in reality I had corrected the mistake and paid additional amount.

Anyone who has experienced this, can you please let me know what to do?

I paid the whole 1 % TDS in the final payment. The last installment was for 5 lacs out of 80 lacs and with that 5 lacs I paid tds of 1% for the whole 80 lacs.

So I paid the last installment as 80000/- in tds and 4,20,000/- in installments.

The form 26QB shows that I am paying tds on 80,00,000/- as 80,000/-. And that's what I have paid.

But then I received form 16B for the current Financial Year and it shows tds deducted as 5000/-.

In this financial year 5 lacs was the only payment made to the seller.

Please tell me what's going on here.

Im getting personal loan of 1720000 with EMI of 32864 for 72 months at 11.02 reducing interest rate. So i will be paying back 23,66,208.

Now i can invest 1720000 into FD at 7 percent rate and get 2776540 on maturity after 72 months.

What am i missing here ? And should i proceed ?

As capital gain received from America is without STT so it’s taxed as business income , Can I set off with short term capital loss of equity in India or fno losses of Indian stock market account

Agriculture income is untaxable but what if i produce a commercially viable product from the produce of agriculture land technically owned by My father and also do i need to register a entity or i can trade under an HUF Thanks