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CA Pratik Anand

Ques: How is the income tax return of a deceased person filed?

Ans: The Income Tax return of a deceased person is filed on his/her behalf by the legal heir of the assessee under the provisions of the Income Tax Act’1961.

The income tax return of the deceased assessee will be signed on behalf of the deceased assessee by his legal heir.

Ques: What if the income tax return is to be accompanied by a tax audit report?

Ans: The procedure for filing tax audit report is similar to filing the return. Here the tax audit report will be approved by the legal heir before filing of income tax return.

Ques: What is the procedure for filing Income Tax Return alongwith with the tax audit report in case of a legal heir?

Ans: The procedure to file income tax return and tax audit report of a deceased assesse as a legal heir is as follows:

The Legal heir has to submit a request to become a legal heir under the Income Tax Act’1961 for filing the return of income of the deceased i.e he has to register as a legal heir in the income tax login.

1. Go to ‘My Account’ TAB under the income tax login of the Legal Heir and click on ‘Register as Legal Heir’.

2. Under the Register as Legal Heir option the following details of the deceased assessee are to be entered:

  • PAN
  • Date of Birth
  • Surname
  • Middle Name
  • First Name

3. The following documents are also to be uploaded as a ZIP file for making a request to act as a legal heir:

  • Copy of Death Certificate of the deceased
  • Copy of the PAN of the deceased
  • Self-attested PAN Copy of the Legal Heir
  • Affidavit in presence of the notary by the legal heir
  • Legal Heir Certificate.

Following documents will be accepted as Legal Heir Certificate:

  • Legal Heir certificate issued by the court of law.
  • Legal Heir certificate issued by the Local Revenue authorities.
  • The surviving members’ certificate issued by the local revenue authorities.
  • Registered will of the deceased.
  • Family pension certificate issued by the Central/State Government.

1. After the documents are ready, scan the same and make a zip file of the same. The size of the ZIP file should not be more than 1 MB.

2. After attaching the zip file of the required documents, click on the submit button to register a request for becoming a Legal Heir to the e-filing Administrator. You will be provided a number for your request.

3. The E-filing Administrator after examining the submitted documents may approve or reject the request.

4. You can view the status of your request by going to the ‘My Request List’ Tab.

5. After approval of your request, the PAN of the deceased will start showing in the login of the Legal Heir. The Login of the deceased will be blocked after the approval of the request.

6. Now for filing the tax audit report of the deceased, the following procedure is to be followed:

  • Add CA for the deceased by clicking on the ‘Add CA’ option in the Login of the Legal Heir by choosing the PAN of the deceased.
  • After adding CA by the legal heir, the CA can upload the tax audit report of the deceased from his login by giving the PAN of the deceased.
  • After the CA has uploaded the tax audit report, the same will be approved by the legal heir by using his digital signature. The tax audit report of the deceased for approval will be available in the ‘For Your Action’ Option in the ‘Worklist’ Tab in the login of the legal heir by clicking on the PAN of the deceased.
  • After approval of the of the tax audit report, the legal heir can proceed to file the return of the deceased.

For filing the return after approval of tax audit report, the Legal Heir has to enter his PAN in the verification part section of the ITR Form, validate and generate the xml file.

Adding the PAN of the legal heir in the verification part means that the legal heir is stating that he is filing and signing the return as a representative assessee. Therefore, the PAN of the legal heir is to be entered in the representative assessee section of the return in some of the softwares.

After generating the xml by following the above, the xml can be uploaded by using the login of the Legal Heir.

Notes: For filing the return as a legal heir, the Legal Heir must have a PAN and the same must be registered in the online portal of the income tax department for filing online return.

(The author is a CA in practice at Delhi and can be contacted at: E-mail: capratikanand@gmail.com, Mobile: +91-9953199493)

(Republished With Amendments)

Author Bio

Pratik Anand is the founder of youronlinefilings.in, an online startup for business registrations, annual business compliance services, Tax filings, book keeping, legal consultancy etc. He is a Chartered accountant by profession and has special flair and expertise in the area of direct Taxation. He View Full Profile

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10 Comments

  1. sushrutha reddy says:

    how to add ca by choosing pan of the deseased in legal heir account ? I dont find any option to choose deseased pan.

  2. Ayushi Gupta says:

    Dear sir,
    While filling an audited income tax return of the deceased assessee through his legal heir, i came up with an error that it was not accepting the DSC of the legal heir. Can you please guide how to file the XML using DSC on the income tax portal. I really need to file the return on urgent basis as the return is related to A.Y. 2015-16. Please help ASAP

  3. Akash Mishra says:

    Dear Sir

    Thank You For Your article

    Sir,
    I Have one of querry regarding the documents required for the legal heir certificate. Sir, as you now most of local revenue authorities have stop issuing the legal heir certificate and also legal heir certificate issued by the court required much longer period. Sir I want to know is there any other remedy to get leagl heir certificate so as to get permanent legal heir status, because untill we are issued with permanent status we would be unable to file the audit report of deceased person.

    Thanking You,

    Your Faithfully
    Akash Mishra

  4. Sivaraman Viswanathan says:

    Thanks for the info regarding filing for a dead person.
    How ever how to file a return for a MENTALLY retarded person.
    Such person will not be able to apply even for PAN due to mental status.
    The income arises because the person’s parent have left some property on which income accrues and is required for taking care of the person and treatment.
    Income will also arise as CG on sale of Immovable assets.
    The parent has appointed an executor for managing the funds to take care of the beneficiary.

  5. VENKAT says:

    The heir in foreign country and foreign citizen. how does he or she know the income details of the diseased for that year. As long as the diseased submitted IT returns regularly till the year of his/her death the income tax for the year of death may be waived. This will also encourage the living persons to submit IT return regularly.

    2. what happens if there are more than one child. who is the heir.

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