Income tax notice deadline: the date, not the rule
“Thirty days from service” is a rule. A date is an instruction. Pick the letter, enter when it was served, and write the answer on the notice in pen.
Free · No signup · Nothing you type leaves your browser
Match what the letter says, not the section number on it — that is the thing you are trying to work out.
Service, not the date printed on the notice and not the day you read it. For a notice delivered to your e-filing account, that is the day it appeared there.
Pick the notice and enter the date it was served. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is saved.
Pick what the letter says and enter the date it was served, and this gives you the date your period expires, what happens the day after, and the next rung with its own clock. A demand is 30 days; a defective return is 15. Several notices set their own date, and the tool says so rather than inventing a period.
Key takeaways
- Every period runs from service — not from the date printed on the notice, and not from the day you opened the email.
- A demand starts two clocks on the same day: 30 days to pay or respond, and 30 days to appeal.
- A defective-return intimation is the short one at 15 days, and the consequence is that the return is treated as never filed.
- Not every notice has a statutory period. Several run to whatever date the letter specifies, and the honest answer is to read it off the letter.
- The Tribunal's clock is the odd one out: two months from the end of the month, not two months from the date.
How the dates are worked out
There is no cleverness in this. A period of thirty days from service is the date of service plus thirty days, and the tool does that arithmetic on calendar days so that months of different lengths, short Februaries and leap years all come out right. What it adds is the thing a rule cannot give you — a date.
One period is computed differently, and it is the one people most often get wrong. An appeal to the Appellate Tribunal runs for two months from the end of the month in which the order was communicated, rather than two months from the date of communication. An order communicated on 15 August therefore runs to 31 October, not to 15 October. Counting sixty days from the order is the commonest way to file a fortnight late.
Where a notice carries no statutory period — a scrutiny notice, an inquiry notice, a reopening notice, a penalty show-cause — the tool says so and tells you to take the date off the letter. Inventing a period for those would be worse than useless.
| The notice | Period | From |
|---|---|---|
| A demand for money | 30 days | Service of the notice |
| An intimation showing a sum payable | 30 days | Service — it is deemed to be a demand notice |
| Your return is defective | 15 days | The intimation of the defect |
| An order of the Commissioner (Appeals) | 2 months | The end of the month in which it was communicated |
| Scrutiny, inquiry, reopening, penalty, refund adjustment | As the notice states | Read the date off the letter |
Why service is the date that matters
Every period on this page runs from service, and service is a specific event rather than a general sense of when something arrived.
For a notice delivered to your e-filing account, service is when it was made available there — which is recorded on the portal under e-Proceedings, and is usually the same day the alerting email was sent. For a notice that came by post, the postal record is the evidence, which is why the envelope is worth keeping: it is occasionally later than the department's own record, and where a period is tight that difference is the whole argument.
What service is not: the date printed at the top of the letter, which can be days or weeks earlier, and the day you got round to opening it, which is irrelevant however good the reason.
A demand notice starts the period to pay and the period to appeal on the same day, and both are thirty days. People deal with the first, assume the second follows it, and discover the appeal window closed while a rectification was pending. Recording a response on the portal does not extend the appeal window, and neither does filing a rectification — the only thing that helps is filing the appeal, which can be withdrawn later if the rectification succeeds.
The department has deadlines too
This tool computes yours. It is worth knowing that several notices have a limitation period of their own, and a notice issued or served outside it is open to challenge.
- A scrutiny notice must be served within three months from the end of the financial year in which the return was furnished. A return filed at any point during 2025-26 gives a last date of 30 June 2026.
- An intimation after processing must be sent within nine months from the end of the financial year in which the return was made. After that, processing is closed and the return stands as filed.
- Reopening an old year has its own limitation rules, which is why the dates matter more there than anywhere else.
- Penalty proceedings have an outer time limit running broadly from the end of the quarter in which the relevant assessment, appeal or revision was completed.
It takes thirty seconds and it is occasionally worth the entire assessment. But check and raise it — do not simply ignore a notice because you have concluded it is out of time. An assessment made without you is a worse outcome than one where the point was taken and lost.
If the date has already gone
Missing a period is bad and it is not always final. What is available depends on which period lapsed.
- An appeal filed late can be admitted where the appellate authority is satisfied there was sufficient cause for not filing in time. That is an application decided on its merits, supported by evidence, not a formality.
- A defective-return period that has lapsed leaves the Assessing Officer with a discretion to condone, where the defect is rectified before the assessment is completed. Again, a request rather than a right.
- A demand that has gone unpaid can still be dealt with — by paying, by applying for instalments, or by seeking a stay — but you are now in default, interest has started, and a penalty has become possible.
- An extension of time to pay had to be applied for before the period expired. After it, the equivalent conversation is about instalments and about not enforcing, which is a weaker position.
Acting now rather than after more time passes. Every one of the routes above is decided partly on how promptly you moved once you realised, and a delay explained in weeks reads very differently from one explained in months.
Worked examples
Example 1: A demand served in the middle of August
- Notice
- A demand for ₹42,000
- Served
- 12 August 2026
- 1.Thirty days from 12 August 2026 is 11 September 2026. August has 31 days, so the period crosses the month end.
- 2.The same date is the last day to appeal the order behind the demand.
- 3.If nothing is done by then: default, interest at 1% for every month or part of a month, a possible penalty up to the whole of the arrears, and set-off against any refund for another year.
- 4.The next rung is the Commissioner (Appeals), filed in Form 35 or Form 99 depending on the year, for ₹250 to ₹1,000.
One date, two clocks, and a consequence chain that starts on 12 September. Writing that date on the letter in pen is most of the value here.
Example 2: A defective return over a short February
- Notice
- Return is defective — audit report not filed
- Served
- 31 January 2026
- 1.Fifteen days from 31 January 2026 is 15 February 2026.
- 2.An extension can be applied for, but only before those fifteen days expire.
- 3.If the period lapses, the return is treated as an invalid return and the Act applies as if nothing had been filed — late fee, lost carry-forward of losses, and any refund claimed goes with the return.
- 4.After expiry the only route is the officer's discretion to condone where the defect is rectified before the assessment is completed.
The shortest period on the cluster, attached to the letter that looks least alarming. It is the one worth checking the date on first.
Example 3: An appeal order communicated in December
- Order
- Commissioner (Appeals), partly against you
- Communicated
- 3 December 2026
- 1.The Tribunal's period runs from the end of the month, not the date. December ends on the 31st.
- 2.Two months from 31 December 2026 is 28 February 2027 — February 2027 has 28 days, so the date clamps to the last day of that month rather than rolling into March.
- 3.Counting sixty days from 3 December would give 1 February, nearly four weeks early, which is harmless. Counting two months from 3 December gives 3 February, which is also early. The error that costs people is assuming the period is shorter than it is and then not filing at all.
- 4.A cross-objection, if the department has appealed instead, runs 30 days from receiving notice of their appeal and carries no fee.
The only period on this cluster that starts from a month end rather than a date, and the one most often computed wrongly.
More questions about this page
When does the deadline on an income tax notice start running?▼
How long do I have to respond to a demand notice?▼
How long do I have to fix a defective return?▼
How is the Tribunal's two-month period calculated?▼
What if my notice does not state a deadline?▼
Can a missed deadline be extended?▼
Does filing a rectification pause the appeal deadline?▼
Does the department have deadlines too?▼
Official sources checked
The statutes, rules and regulator pages the statements on this page were checked against.
- Income-tax Act, 2025 — s. 411(1) (30 days on a demand), s. 263(7) (15 days on a defective return), s. 289(2) (an intimation deemed a demand notice), s. 358 (30 days to the first appeal), s. 362 (two months from the end of the month, to the Tribunal), s. 365 (120 days to the High Court)Read against the enacted text.
- Income-tax Act, 1961 — ss. 139(9), 143(1), 143(2), 156, 220(1), 245, 249, 253, 260AThe provisions that in fact govern any notice about a tax year up to 2025-26, by reason of the repeal-and-savings provision in s. 536 of the 2025 Act.
- Date arithmetic verified by an automated test in the repositoryscripts/test-notice-deadline.mts — 28 assertions covering month ends, a short February, a leap year, a year boundary, the Tribunal's month-end rule with clamping, and seven invalid-date cases including 31 February.
You are here
Turning the period on your notice into a date
What to do next
- 1
If you are not sure which notice you are holding
Eight types, matched by what the letter says rather than by the section number on it.
Which income tax notice is this? → - 2
If it is a demand and the clock is running
The consequence ladder that starts on day 31, with each rung tied to the provision behind it.
Income tax demand notice → - 3
If the next step is an appeal
What each rung costs to enter, which form, and what must be paid before it is admitted.
Appeal fee calculator → - 4
If it is a scrutiny notice
Check the department's own three-month limit against your service date before answering on the merits.
Scrutiny notice →
This page is general information about procedure and deadlines, checked against the provisions in force on the date shown. It is not advice on your own assessment, and a notice that looks routine can turn on facts a page cannot see. Where money or a limitation period is at stake, put the notice in front of a practising Chartered Accountant.