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With the advent of online tax filing it is much easier task to file your returns. But sometime there may be situations where you need to interact with income tax department to clarify their doubts or to raise the issues related to your tax filing. At that time you must first know about your tax ward and circle or about your assessing officer. This article gives an overview of Assessing Officer, lists the situation in which one needs to contact Assessing Officer and how to change Assessing Officer and Jurisdiction.

Overview of Assessing Officer

Who is Assessing Officer?

An Assessing Officer is a person who has jurisdiction(means: official power to make tax decisions and judgments for that assessee) to make assessment of an assessee, who is liable to tax under the Act. The designation may vary according to the volume of income/nature of trade as assigned by the Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT Board), the department which deals with income tax. He may be an Income-tax Officer, Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Joint Commissioner or an Additional Commissioner. To know more about Assessing Officer one can read incometaxindia.gov.in:Central Board of Direct Taxes . To know your Assessing Officer , (which is an optional field to fill in our ITR forms also) Go to incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/Services/KnowYourJurisdictionLink.html  and enter your PAN number. Our article How to find Jurisdictional Assessing Officer : Income Tax explains it in detail.

Your Income Tax Jurisidiction

Your Income Tax Jurisidiction

How is an Assessing Officer assigned?

To assess the returns, there are various officers across India who are designated to assess records of a particular set of tax-payers in that geographical area only. The address mentioned by the tax-payer in his PAN( Permanent Account Number) is used to determine the jurisdiction of the income tax officer.

E.g. Hetal lives in Mumbai. She provided the address of her residential house in Mumbai while applying for PAN. Hence, the jurisdiction of Miss. Hetal shall be Income-tax office, Mumbai.

When does one need to contact Assessing Officer?

Typically processing of Income Tax Return is done by Central Processing Cell (CPC) Bangalore. But there are cases where you may need to contact your Assesing officer. Examples of Mail from Income Tax

For Income Tax Refund

Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. SO ,

We are pleased to advise that your Income Tax Refund , as determined by ITD had been processed.

Please find attached payment advice for details. The advice is password protected. Please use your PAN number in capital letters to open the attachment.

For more details please contact CPC Bengaluru at 1800-425-2229 (Toll Free) or 080-22546500 if the Return was filed online.

If other cases,you need to visit local Income Tax Ward and contact your Assessing Officer.

In response to outstanding Tax Demand

Dear SO,

Response for Outstanding Tax Demand is submitted for the User ID ACXXXXXX8D and the Transaction ID is 1010101011 .

Disclaimer: Your response has been registered. However, it is subject to the verification and confirmation by your Jurisdictional Assessing Officer.

For Challan 280 Correction

While filling Challan 280 for self assessment tax, advance tax one may make mistake such as mention wrong Assessment year or Incorrect PAN or TAN etc. It is necessary to correct such mistakes otherwise tax would not be credited to you in correct year and you might get notice from Income tax department for tax due. If you have paid Challan 280 online then only your Assessing Officer can correct the details. You can correct the details in the challan 280 by Our article How to Correct Challan 280 discusses it in detail.

Notice for Processing of Income Tax Return to meet the Assessing Officer

You might get notice regarding Processing of ITR. Thanks to Our reader Soniya for sharing the letter with us. Our article Income Tax Notice :Sections,What to check,How to reply  discusses it in detail. Click on image to Enlarge

Notice for Processing of Income Tax Return to meet the Assessing Officer

Notice for Processing of Income Tax Return to meet the Assessing Officer

Changing PAN address doesn’t change Assessing Officer

Changing address details in PAN database does not automatically change your jurisdiction. You have to write to your current assessing officer regarding your change of place and request him to transfer your case records and jurisdiction to appropriate AO. Once both the officers are satisfied about proposed transfer, the old Assessing Officer will initiate transfer process and migrate your PAN to the new AO.

Change in Assessing Officer

When should Assessing Officer be changed?

Change of address/Jurisdiction

It is common that people shift to new places for work or other reasons. Due to change in address there are many aspects that need to be updated and modified for  filing of tax returns. Now say for example, you shifted to Bangalore from Mumbai due to your new job. Your old jurisdiction was Mumbai. However for future correspondence with the Income-tax department, you are required to change your jurisdiction as Bangalore. In such cases, the taxpayer is required to inform the existing jurisdictional Income-tax officer about such change by way of written application. Many times your Jurisdiction will be changed automatically,

Unsatisfied by the present Assessing Officer:

If a tax-payer feels that the assessing officer assigned to him doesn’t perform his duties in an ethical manner, or is unsatisfied with his work he can request to change the officer or can get his file transferred from one ward to another.  Unethical practices include:

  • Delay in the payment of refunds beyond the specified time limit.
  • If the income tax officials behave rudely with the assessee
  • If transparency is not maintained while identifying the cases for non communication and scrutiny
  • If there is a delay in the allotment of the permanent account number (PAN)
  • In case of non performance of duties by AO
  • If the AO has wrongly assessed the return of the assessee say for example AO has made a mistake in treating the expenses of repairs of Rs 100000 as a capital expenditure. The aggrieved party need not submit any documents or application for this case. Rather, he has the right to appeal directly against it within 30days from receiving the order. Then the commissioner decides a date and time for the hearing from both the aggrieved party and AO.

How to change the assessing officer?

For any genuine reason like change of address, or ill-mannered assessing officer you can apply to the income tax authority for the change in assessing officer. Please note that

  • Six (6) copies of Application should be filed with competent authority.
  • Copy of application should be sent to concerned AO, CIT and Addl./Jt.CIT.
  • As per section 127(4) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 income file can be transferred at any stage of proceedings even if  Assessment is Pending.
  • When a file is transferred then Demand or Refund of Tax can be collected/refunded by new assessing officer. Now a days Demand or Refund is processed by Central Processing Centre, Bangalore.

Once all the procedures are duly followed the jurisdiction will be changed. 

Change of Assessing Officer when there is change in address:

  1. Go to NSDL site and apply for change the address on PAN Card by paying requisite fees.
  2. Thereafter you apply to the present jurisdictional assessing officer for transfer of your assessment records to the new A.O having jurisdiction over your case. For example, I am residing in Thane, and my jurisdiction is Ward 1(3), Thane. Due to some reason I shift to Delhi and intend to change my ward. So I have to submit a written application to my assessment officer in Thane asking for transfer of all legal documents to the officer in Delhi and also submit the said acknowledged copy of the letter to my NEW jurisdictional officer and inform him about the update that he will receive.
  3. There is no prescribed format for seeking transfer but it should have following facts in the letter:
    • Your Name & PAN
    • A.O. Circle/Ward under whom you are being assessed currently
    • A.O. Circle/Ward under whom you seek the transfer.
    • The reason or ground on which you seek transfer.

Please remember the Commissioner is supposed to hear you first in order to pass a jurisdiction transfer of your case without your application. Copy of the letter must be sent to the respective Commissioner of Income Tax and should be with supporting evidence of address proof.

Change of Assessing Officer in case of ill-mannered officer

Anyone with the problems or other related grievances can file a complaint against the income tax department personally or through his representative by

  • Writing and submitting to the Ombudsman.
  • The complaint has to be duly signed by the complainant and his authorized representative.
  • It should contain complainant’s name, address, and the office/officer against whom he wants to make the complaint giving the exact nature for filing complaint.
  • The complaint should be supported with relevant documents.
  • An electronic complaint is also acceptable and the Ombudsman would sign it.
  • This date on which the print out is taken and signed will be considered the date of filing the complaint.

Application for Change in Assessing Officer to be made to whom

If the Assessing Officers from whom file is to be transferred to and the Assessing Officers where file is to be transferred are under the jurisdiction of same Director General(DGIT), or Chief Commissioner of Income Tax(CCIT) and /or Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT), in that case  application has to be made to the concerned CIT with copy to Assessing Officer (AO) where file need to be transferred. 

Upon receipt of such application concerned Director General(DGIT), or Chief Commissioner of Income Tax(CCIT) and /or Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT) after going through facts will give directions mentioning the reasons. For this Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (CCIT)and /or Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT) may give an opportunity of being heard to assesee.

If Assessing Officers Who is having the present jurisdiction and Assessing Officers to whom the file is Proposed to be transferred are not under jurisdiction of same Director General(DGIT), or Chief Commissioner of Income Tax(CCIT) and /or Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT) then the Director General(DGIT), or Chief Commissioner of Income. Tax(CCIT) and /or Commissioner of Income Tax (CIT) under whose jurisdiction file need to be transferred will issue directions. But if they are not agreeable then CBDT (Central Board of Direct Tax) may issue directions.

Format of letter for Change in Assessing Officer

Format of letter for change in Assessing Officer is shown below. It can be downloaded from here (Word format). Click on image to Enlarge

Letter for Change  Assessing Officer

Letter for Change in Assessing Officer

How to track change in Jurisdiction or Assessing Officer?

You will generally receive mails on the registered e-mail, or updates on the correspondence address from the department informing the change in address and jurisdiction officer. Also, once the officer is changed, it will duly reflect on the KNOW YOUR JURISDICTION section. incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/Services/KnowYourJurisdictionLink.html 

Related Articles:

Hope this article will help all the people who wanted to know how to change their Jurisdiction.We have not applied for change in Jurisdiction and we are not CA or from financial background, so this is for your information on request of some of our readers. If you have had experience or you change the Jurisdiction based on article please do let us know the gaps or how accurate it is. It would be helping other readers.

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