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What should you do if you have received the 80GGC SMS?

Posted on 28 Jan 2025
Author: Sayan Sircar

Tags: News ; Tax

7 mins read
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This article tells the next steps to take if you have received an SMS about your 80GGC tax deduction claim made in the past.

What should you do if you have received the 80GGC SMS?

Disclaimer: You should take professional help from a practicing CA in case you are facing a taxation situation where doing-it-yourself might make things worse.

This article is a part of our detailed article series on various communications that the income tax department sends you. Ensure you have read the other parts here:

What should you do if you have received the income tax SMS telling you about the opportunity to file your updated ITR under section 139(8A)?

This article tells the next steps to take if you have received an SMS about your past income tax returns which you can amend using the ITR-U facility.

What to do if you get the transactions reported by you in Form 60/61 relating to FY 2022-23 SMS from the Income Tax department?

This article shows you what do do if you receive this cryptic SMS from the income tax department.

📚 Topics covered:

What is the 80GGC SMS that tax-payers are receiving?
What is Section 80GGC deduction?
What are the points to consider for a valid Section 80GGC deduction?
What should you do with the 80GGC SMS?
Should you revise your income-tax return by 31st March 2025 for 80GGC donation?

What is the 80GGC SMS that tax-payers are receiving?

Multiple tax-payers have received a mysterious SMS from the income-tax department that looks like this:

It is observed that you have claimed deduction under section 80GGC of Rs xxxxxx in your ITR for A.Y. 20yy-zz. It is requested that the claim may be verified and mistake, if any, may be rectified by updating the ITR for A.Y. 20yy-zz by 31.03.2025.

Warm regards

Income Tax Department

If you have made a valid 80GGC donation as per the rules, then this article is for you.

What is Section 80GGC deduction?

As per the income-tax website,

Deduction in respect of contributions given by any person to political parties.
80GGC. In computing the total income of an assessee, being any person, except local authority and every artificial juridical person wholly or partly funded by the Government, there shall be deducted any amount of contribution made by him, in the previous year, to a political party or an electoral trust :
Provided that no deduction shall be allowed under this section in respect of any sum contributed by way of cash.
Explanation.—For the purposes of sections 80GGB and 80GGC, 'political party' means a political party registered under section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 (43 of 1951).

It is important to understand the rules under which these deductions work to understand if the deduction that you have claimed is valid or not.

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What are the points to consider for a valid Section 80GGC deduction?

The payment cannot be in cash. Net-banking, cheque, demand draft, debit/credit card and other electronic modes are valid
A receipt with the details of the political party (PAN, TAN, address etc) and donor details like name and PAN must be captured in the receipt
Income tax return must be filed within the usual deadlines (31st July is recommended)
You must be in the old tax regime
100% of the donated amount, up to the actual income of the tax-payer is allowed for deduction

If you have followed all of the points above, then your 80GGC deduction claim is valid. However, donations made to Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPP) are already under the Income Tax scanner might be problematic.

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What should you do with the 80GGC SMS?

IT Portal Pending Actions

It is a good practice to check if there are any Pending Actions in the income-tax portal:

Login to the IT Portal
Check under the “Pending Actions” tab, scroll to “Worklist”.

If there is no Pending Action, check back in a few days.

If there is a Pending Action, please follow the instructions to upload a copy of the 80GGC receipt. This will start the processing steps for the Pending Action.

Should you revise your income-tax return by 31st March 2025 for 80GGC donation?

There are two cases here on the status of the 80GGC claim:

Claim is valid (cheque/online payment) with receipt: then you should wait for the Pending Action in the income tax portal
Claim is invalid: then you should amend your FY2023-24 return by 31st March 2025 and pay the required tax and penalty. Consulting your CA will be the right step to take here

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<p>This article tells the next steps to take if you have received an SMS about your past income tax returns which you can amend using the ITR-U facility.</p>

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What should you do if you have received the income tax SMS telling you about the opportunity to file your updated ITR under section 139(8A)?

This article tells the next steps to take if you have received an SMS about your past income tax returns which you can amend using the ITR-U facility.