The article shows you the right way to allow your CA or other intermediary to file your income tax return instead of sharing username and password.

📚 Table of Contents

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• What happens if you share your login and password of income tax portal?
• What are the options for registering your intermediary?
• Explaining the options
  • What is My e-Return Intermediary (ERI)
  • What is My Chartered Accountant(s)?
  • What is Register as Representative Assessee?
  • What is Register to Act on Behalf of Another Person?
  • What is Authorise Another Person to Act on Behalf of Self?
• What to do if your CA insists on taking your password?

What happens if you share your login and password of income tax portal?

Many CAs while engaging with you for return filing will ask only your documents like Form 16 and bank account / MF / Demat statements etc. to file your return. If they ask for your login-password as well, that could be an immediate red flag 🚩.

Sharing credentials of income tax portal with anyone is the same as giving your house keys or Net-banking user name/password to a third party. You are trusting them not to do anything that will get you into trouble.

From the Income Tax authorities stand-point, every return filed using your login-password will be tagged as:

ITR - “Filed By: Self”

This is irrespective of whether you yourself filed it or some one else like a CA did on your behalf. There is no accountability of the CA and if you get a Income Tax notice, it will be your headache to deal with it. Your CA may or may not help at that point.

Fortunately the income tax portal offers multiple alternatives to register your CA (or other intermediary) so that they have the necessary accountability.

What are the options for registering your intermediary?

The income tax portal offers multiple options to register an intermediary for purposes like audits and filing on behalf of others based on certain conditions. Once you login to the Income Tax website to file your return, you will see this option in the top menu:

Click the “Authorised Partners” option and choose one of the options here. For most people, you will be choosing the second option “My Chartered Accountant (CA)”. We will explain all the five options in order.

Explaining the options

What is My e-Return Intermediary (ERI)

e-Return Intermediary (ERI) is a company (like Cleartax) or another software that files income tax return for you electronically. If you are using ERI, then that website or tool will give you the option to link your tax account or you can do the same yourself from this option using the Add ERI button.

Note: If you are using Cleartax, your ERI name will be Clearsharp Technology Private Limited.

What is My Chartered Accountant(s)?

For most people using a CA for filing the return, you can add your CA to the portal using the Add CA button here.

Once you click the “Add CA” button, the wizard starts asking for the CA’s membership number.

What is Register as Representative Assessee?

A user can register to act as representative assessee of another person for carrying out their activities in e-filing under certain circumstances.

There is a detailed “Things you should know before proceeding” list before you exercise this option. Representative Assessees are applicable in the cases as below:

• As court of wards
• Deceased (Legal heir)
• Lunatic or Idiot
• Mentally Incapacitated
• Minor
• Oral Trust
• Agent of a Non-Resident
• Trust in writing

Editor’s note: This list is exactly as per the Income Tax portal and the terms chosen are from the IT portal.

What is Register to Act on Behalf of Another Person?

A user can register to act on behalf of another person for carrying out their activities in e-Filing portal under certain circumstances.

This option is for those individuals who are planning to file returns on the behalf of another person as per the criteria below. There is a detailed “Things you should know before proceeding” list before you exercise this option snippets from which are provided below:

• Company under Liquidation
• Merger or Amalgamation or takeover of Business or Profession
• Discontinued or Closed Business
• Estate of Deceased
• Estate of an Insolvent

What is Authorise Another Person to Act on Behalf of Self?

Any assessee who is incapable of acting on their own due to some valid reason , he / she can authorise someone else to act on their behalf.

There is a detailed “Things you should know before proceeding” list before you exercise this option.

• This functionality is available only for an Individual & a Non-Resident Company with Non-resident Directors having no PAN or valid DSC
• One can authorise another person for submission and verification of return/forms/ service requests which requires authorisation using OTP . Under service request, taxpayer can only authorise for Refund re-issue and Rectification request submission.
• Please ensure a legally valid Power Of Attorney (POA) is already given to the person intended to be authorised so as to enable upload of the copy of the POA received by the authorised while accepting your request. Without giving a legally valid POA, the authorization made through this portal facility will be treated as null and void. Click here to download the template of Power of Attorney.
• Person intended to be authorised can act on this request within 7 days by going to Worklist post login by uploading the copy of the Power of Attorney obtained by him. On acceptance of your request by intended person to be authorised, it will take 72 hours for the Authorisation to become effective

What to do if your CA insists on taking your password?

You must review the submission before the filing by doing the e-Verification yourself. The key thing to check at this point is that the income details are correct and the exemptions are genuine. Once the filing is done, you must change the password immediately.

Alternatively, you can provide documents like Form 16, Form 26AS, AIS etc to the CA so that they can prepare the JSON file to be uploaded. They provide the JSON file to you while you upload yourself into the IT portal.

Tip: If you login into the IT portal via Netbanking, then the e-Verification of your ITR happens automatically.