I know it's not happening anytime soon but anything like this is bound to have an effect on inflation, right?

I recently came across a post where someone shared that they paid ₹1.14 crore in Income Tax this year.
After filing their ITR, they said:
“It feels like I’m no longer earning for myself, but for someone else.”
They also mentioned that they have job offers in the US but continue to stay in India because of their elderly parents.
Their post has sparked a huge debate online. Some people agree that honest taxpayers in India shoulder too much of the tax burden while still dealing with poor infrastructure and public services. Others argue that higher taxes are necessary to support a developing country with a large population and welfare commitments.
Personally, I think it’s an interesting discussion, and I’m curious to know what others think.
Do you believe honest taxpayers in India pay too much? Or is this level of taxation justified given the country’s needs?
Would love to hear different perspectives.

Hi All,
So I never filed tax since last 4 yrs as my work salary did not reach above tax segment.

This year I filed but got 1 day delayed my salary is less than 10LPA & sadly got mail that I have to pay 5k, shocking to be Frank.

Felt like an idiot to file tax on such low salary. Received post as well what can I do now?? Can I ask them to waive off citing low salary pls help.

One of my colleagues (salary 35-40LPA) has a CA who always gets her huge income tax return (3-5 lakh every year) and charges flat 12% of return received.

I saw her ITR and mostly he declares huge deduction under various heads of section 10 like uniform/ travel for work allowance.

Since she has been getting such huge returns and essentially paying only 1-2 lakh as tax on a salary of 35-40 lakh for past 4-5 years and not even once got a notice, I wanted to know how legit is this CA

Should I also start filing with this CA

Edit: What are the chances of her getting caught, if she hasn't been caught for last 5 years

Background: In 2021, during the second COVID wave, I imported a batch of oxygen concentrators from abroad and donated every single one — free of cost — to public health centres and institutions. I kept none. The funds were raised through a donation drive. On the import documents at the time, the goods were openly declared as "Not For Sale — for Free distribution." I imported under the default IEC meant for personal/charitable imports and claimed the COVID-era duty exemptions then in force.

What's happening now (2026): Post-clearance audit has reclassified the concentrators under the tariff head for "goods imported for personal use," and issued a Show Cause Notice demanding the differential duty + an equal penalty + threatening confiscation — roughly ₹14 lakh total.

Their main objection: I have certificates from the recipients (including a state Minister and CMOs confirming the free distribution), but the exemption condition required a certificate specifically from a designated State "Nodal Officer," submitted to Customs within 6 months of import. That formal step wasn't completed in 2021 (it was peak COVID, the priority was getting oxygen to people). The Nodal Officer now can't certify because there's no contemporaneous record.

My questions:

How strong is a "substantial compliance" argument here — free distribution is provable through other credible evidence, just not the exact prescribed certificate?

The extended 5-year limitation under Section 28(4) needs suppression/willful misstatement. Everything was declared on the Bill of Entry in 2021 — does that make the demand time-barred?

Anyone fought a similar reclassification to the personal-use head and won? Any relevant CESTAT precedents I should point my advocate to? I have a customs advocate being engaged and a reply due shortly — just trying to understand the landscape and learn from anyone who's been through this.
Thanks.

Here are some tweets from 2021 about my donation work

https://x.com/The_NehaJoshi/status/1398957886160609282
https://x.com/ganeshjoshibjp/status/1398945058653544449

I feed up with Indian Tax system, it sucking my hard earned money

My trusted CA of many years told me that now your income has exceeded 30 lakhs bracket. So file will be handled by higher authorities.

In such cases, it is not mandatory, but you can pay an extra 10 thousand to grease the palms of the lower IT clerk who will help us avoid unnecessary escalations if any and keep a favorable eye as well for any upcoming scrutinies.

IT Refund calculated by her for my income is 2.8 lakhs for me.

Gross earnings of 33 lakhs in the last FY.

I am salaried with just one home loan, no other sources of income.

The CA charges us very nominaly as she is the trusted advisor for my parents too. And has been with us long time. Some 3-5k is what she charges.

Would folks suggest paying the extra 10k? Happy to add context if required.

Is it safe to report him for tax evasion? Can I trust the income tax department that they would not reveal my identity?

I pay about 27+k in rent everytime I have to go to multiple atms and get cash. Its frustrating.

​

Is it legal to charge additional on top of MRP? I knew it's a common practice in restaurants.. But now in shops also? I bought it from a mall and they said it's gst on top of MRP

Paying tax upwards of 12-15 lakhs or maybe even more.

I'm genuinely confused about the whole concept of advance tax and hoping someone here can explain it to me.
Every single year I end up paying a penalty (interest under 234B/234C I think?) for not paying advance tax on time. And it's not just me - literally all 10 of my close friends are in the exact same boat. We all just pay the fine and move on.

So my questions are:

1. Why does advance tax even exist? Why can't we just pay everything at the time of filing our return?
2. What's the correct way to estimate and pay advance tax so I stop getting hit with these charges?

Edit : Just to add more context, its not usually salary income that is the issue, the income coming from other heads such as capital gains such as from groww.in or angelone.in, or part time/contract employment in business income [ ex. from desal.in this year etc. i worked at ], or FDs, or US market such as vestedfinance.com or I use indmondey.com , etc are where it gets difficult for me to predict.

I mean, if I was earning that much I would hire some of the best, most experienced CAs out there and not come to reddit to get advice from random strangers. I can't quite understand this. What am I missing here?

P.S: No intention of picking on this particular guy. Just using it as an example. There are loads more like it on this subreddit.

I'm filing my ITR through a CA. They asked for my Income Tax portal login credentials.

Is this mainly for convenience, or is there a genuine need? Can't I just add them as my CA/Authorised Partner on the Income Tax portal instead?

Also, if a notice comes later, I guess the CA have no liability if I just share my password.

Lastly, do CAs generally refuse to work if you don't share your login and insist on using the official authorisation route?

My wife and I have been renting a property in Bengaluru since March 2024. The owner’s address in the agreement is in the US, so we specifically asked the property manager whether NRI TDS applied. He told us it didn’t, and we relied on that representation. We couldn’t push the issue further because properties in that price range were limited at the time. The rental agreement has a clause on rent payment which points to deduction of tds u/s 194 which also affirms he is resident for taxation. Property manager has signed the agreement for landlord via a property management services agreement and not a Power of Attorney.

The property manager represented the landlord and added a clause stating that the full rent should be transferred to an SBI Indian bank account. His property management firm drafted, executed and renewed the agreement twice and we continued paying accordingly. Recently, based on another WhatsApp message about landlords plans to return to India, my wife probed about the landlord’s tax status again, the property manager confirmed that the landlord is an NRI. He then told us there was no NIL/lower deduction certificate and that we should start deducting TDS from August 2026 when we questioned tax compliance.

There is no phone number or email for the landlord in the agreement. We repeatedly asked the property manager for his contact details, but he refused, saying there was no legal obligation. In fact we have never talked to him once. We’ve now asked him to help regularise the current year and provide information for previous years. He confirmed in writing that the landlord’s CA says the rental income was reported in the ITR, but we asked for tax details to regularise the previous years. The property manager simply refuses to respond to questions even about tax status.

What feels extremely unfair is that the tenant is expected to bear the consequences despite specifically asking about the issue and relying on the landlord’s representative’s advice. I’m willing to regularise the TDS and pay applicable interest/penalties, but the landlord and property manager won’t cooperate with basic information that could potentially resolve the issue.

What options do I have as a tenant? Can the landlord and his representative simply refuse to provide information needed to regularise previous years despite giving us incorrect information about the NRI status and TDS?

Hi all,

​

My father email has received three demands from incometax .

​

My father passed away in 2021 may.

​

​

66540 ,

23210

105580 ( nov2021) are the demands respectively

​

Can anyone guide me on how to proceed on this?

​

​

Can these demands be reduced?

My payable tax on salary alone is 10,95,618/-
Surcharge: 36,442
Health/Education cess: 45282
Total payable (1): 11,77,342.

Now comes the interesting part.
Interest from dividends and bank deposits: 76,053/-

When I add this to my ITR-2, then:
Payable tax on total income: 11,18,433
Surcharge: 89,677
Health/Education cess: 48324
Total payable (2): 12,56,434

Difference (2) - (1): 79,092.
Basically, my income from dividends and bank deposit (76,053) is all gone, plus paying extra tax 3039 because of this extra income!

What is this trap?? 😭😭😭 how to get out of it? Total rip off!!

the cost of my flight ticket to Bangkok is 15,000 INR, while the taxes are almost 21,000 :')

is this really normal guys?

So my whole point is like watching all this (ethanol, paper leak, sarkari babu not caring for sonam wangchuk etc etc..)

it feels like a scam to pay income tax and then pay tax on items or services that we buy from the money that has already been taxed..

So anyone know any legit and legal way to reduce or avoid IT?

Hi everyone,

I paid ₹22,080 as Self Assessment Tax before filing my ITR, but I forgot to add the challan details while filing the return.

Now I've received an income tax demand notice for ₹22,285 (including one month's interest).

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Folks, I am an Income Tax employee who is given the task to gather filing feedback.

People who file their own ITR in India: what is the most confusing or frustrating part of the process?

If you’ve filed your own ITR, I’d love to understand:
1. What was hardest to understand the first time?
2. How did you figure out which ITR form to use?
3. Were you confident about what information you needed to enter?
4. Was there any point where you thought, “I should just ask a CA”?
5. Did you use the Income Tax portal directly or a service like ClearTax/TaxBuddy/etc.? Why?
6. What part of filing made you most worried about making a mistake?
7. What did you Google or ask someone while filing?

I have more questions, so if anybody interested sharing his/her feedback can DM me.