Is Income Tax notice real or fake? Verify with these easy steps

Have you ever received a notice from the Income Tax Department and are worried that you may be charged a penalty by mistake? There is no need to panic. First of all, check whether the notice sent through the department is genuine or fake.

The Income Tax Department has started an easy process through which you can find out sitting at home whether the notice you have received is genuine or not.

Usually, the Income Tax Department sends you a notice to report any deficiency or mistake. In such a situation, instead of panicking, you should first check the authenticity of the notice. Let us understand the step-by-step process to do this check:

check email id

First of all, check from which email ID the notice has been sent. The Income Tax Department sends all its communications through its official email ID only. This ID ends with @incometax.gov.in, for example, intimations@cpc.incometax.gov.in. If the notice has come from any other email ID, be careful, it could be fake.

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Verify the notice by visiting the website

Even if the email ID is correct, still be cautious. You can visit the Income Tax Department website to check the original notice. On the left side of the website you will see a panel of quick links. Here you have to click on the section which looks like ‘Certify the notice/order issued by the Income Tax Department’. After clicking on this section, you can follow the steps given below.

step 1: A. If you do not have the document number then you will have to enter PAN, document type, assessment year, mobile number, date of issue of notice or order. Remember that this is valid only for assessment years 2011-12 and onwards.

B. If you have a document number, enter the document identification number and mobile number.

Step 2: In the second step, a six-digit OTP will come on your registered mobile number.

Step 3: Enter the OTP to proceed with the deposit.

Step 4: If there is no record in the Income Tax Department, the system will display ‘No record found for the given criteria’. Otherwise, the system will display whatever details are available based on the type of document/information.

Using this simple process, you can check the authenticity of the notice sent by the Income Tax Department in just a few minutes. If the notice is genuine, then follow the instructions given by the department.