Did you realise that taxes can be levied on the deceased as well? As absurd as it may appear, if a deceased person had taxable income, income tax returns had to be submitted for that person. For the income earned up until the date of death, his legal heir or representative must file the return on his behalf. To file the return on behalf of the deceased, the legal successor must register himself on the income tax website. In this post, we'll go through how a legal heir should file the decedent's income tax return.
Who is a legal heir?
According to law, a legal heir is the person who represents the deceased's assets.Following Documents as per law are accepted:
- The certificate of legal heirship issued by a court of law
- The certificate of legal heirship issued by the local revenue authority.
- The certificate issued by the local revenue officials to the remaining family members.
- The deceased person's registered Will
- The State/Central government's family pension certificate.
Register as a legal heir
The legal heir is required to register as a legal heir on the income tax website. For this, we need to be aware of the legal heir's identity and the process for declaring one on the government's income tax website. For the purpose of electronically filing a return on behalf of a decedent, registration as a legal heir is required. Both the legal heir and the deceased person's PAN should be registered in the online filing system. The legal successor may register on behalf of the deceased, but, if their PAN has not been registered.
Documents required to file ITR on behalf of a deceased person
The copies of following documents are required:
- Death Certificate.
- PAN Card of the deceased
- Self-attested PAN card copy of the legal heir
- Legal Heir Certificate (as described above)
- Order passed in the name of the deceased if applicable
- The size of the zip file must not exceed 5 MB.
Registration approval process
Open An ITR Account: In the event of a death, the legal heir is responsible for filing the return of income. In this situation, the legal heir must first register on the income-tax portal under the 'Authorised Partners' option as a representative assessee. This will be carried out using the legal heir's login and account. “The legal heir will need to accomplish this by creating a new request, following the instructions on the portal, uploading the necessary documents, and submitting the request. The tax authorities will review the request after filing and decide whether to accept it or reject it The legal heir will be allowed to file return of income for deceased only when confirmation from the tax authorities is received, The legal heir's request is then forwarded to the e-filing administrator after the aforementioned steps have been finished. "The e-filing administrator will examine the request and, if necessary, approve or reject it. Once the request has been granted, both the legal heir and the deceased may utilise all services. If the request is turned down, the rejection notification would be sent with a good reason. The uploading of inaccurate data or documents, for example, could be one of the causes. Therefore, the legal heir should take the appropriate steps to correct such refusal. Final Filing
After your application to register as the decedent's lawful successor has been granted, you may submit the return in that capacity. ITRs can be filed by adhering to the accepted process, which is used by everyone. The return would be electronically checked using a variety of techniques, such as Aadhaar OTP, net banking, etc., or it may be manually verified by the legal successor, who would then sign the ITR acknowledgement and send a copy of it to the Central Processing Centre (Bengaluru).
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