How Do I Respond to Income Tax Notices Through e-Proceedings in the Faceless System?

Opening your income-tax account to a red "Pending Actions" badge is unsettling, but since the faceless regime took effect on 1 April 2021 almost every notice is now answered online, without a single visit to an Assessing Officer. This Q&A walks through exactly how the e-Proceedings tab on the e-filing portal works, which of the six common notice types land there, and how a salaried taxpayer resolves a real Rs 20,800 adjustment step by step.

The Scenario

Picture Ananya, a Bengaluru product manager filing for Assessment Year 2026-27. Three weeks after she e-verified her return on 14 August 2026, she receives an email from the Centralised Processing Centre stating that an intimation under Section 143(1)(a) is available in her account. The message warns that if she does not respond within 30 days, a proposed adjustment adding Rs 1,00,000 of interest income will be finalised and a fresh demand raised. She has never spoken to a tax officer and has no idea where to click.

Her confusion is common. Under the faceless system there is no ward, no jurisdictional officer to phone, and no counter to visit; the entire exchange happens through the e-Proceedings facility. The same tab handles a defective-return notice under Section 139(9), a prima facie adjustment under Section 143(1)(a), a suo-moto rectification under Section 154, notices issued by an Assessing Officer, a "Seek Clarification" request, and an intimation under Section 245 proposing to set off a tax refund against an existing demand. Knowing which of these six you have received determines your deadline and your options.

Statutory Answer

The legal spine of the faceless framework is Section 144B of the Income-tax Act, 1961, which mandates that assessments be made in a faceless manner through the National Faceless Assessment Centre, allocating cases by an automated system with no physical interface between taxpayer and officer. Section 144B was inserted with effect from 1 April 2021 and its text is on the public statute record at indiacode.nic.in. Every notice that appears in your e-Proceedings tab is served electronically to your registered account and email, and your reply, once submitted, generates a transaction ID that is your legal proof of compliance.

Each notice type carries its own statutory deadline, and missing it has different consequences. The table below maps the six actions handled through e-Proceedings, drawn from the department's own help documentation on incometax.gov.in.

The response mechanics are uniform across all six. You reach them from the Dashboard by opening Pending Actions > e-Proceedings, selecting the relevant proceeding, and choosing "Submit Response". For a Section 143(1)(a) adjustment you must select "Agree" or "Disagree" for each individual line item, and the portal accepts a free-text remark of up to 4,000 characters plus supporting attachments capped at 5 MB per upload. The submission is fully paperless, and a chartered accountant or other authorised representative registered under your profile may file the response to your ITR on your behalf, which is useful when documentary evidence such as a revised Form 16 or bank interest certificate must be assembled.

Worked Resolution

Return to Ananya. Her filed return for AY 2026-27 declared a gross salary of Rs 16,75,000 under the new regime. After the standard deduction of Rs 75,000, her taxable income was Rs 16,00,000, on which the FY 2025-26 new-regime slabs produce the tax shown below. Because her income exceeds Rs 12,00,000 she gets no Section 87A rebate, which in the new regime is worth up to Rs 60,000 only where total income stays at or below Rs 12,00,000.

The Section 143(1)(a) intimation proposes to add Rs 1,00,000 of savings and fixed-deposit interest that appears in her Annual Information Statement but was omitted from her return. That extra Rs 1,00,000 falls entirely in the 20% band, so the additional base tax is Rs 20,000 and, with 4% cess, the fresh demand is exactly Rs 20,800. Ananya now has two honest routes, both filed through e-Proceedings within the 30-day window that opened when the intimation was served.

If she checks her bank statements and finds the interest was genuinely earned and never offered, she selects "Agree" against the line item, adds a short remark confirming the omission, and pays the Rs 20,800 through the portal before the deadline; the demand closes and no penalty proceeding follows a self-corrected 143(1)(a) adjustment. If, instead, the interest belonged to a joint account already taxed in her spouse's return, she selects "Disagree", uploads the co-holder's Form 26AS extract and the bank certificate as a single file under 5 MB, and explains the double-counting in the 4,000-character remark box. To sanity-check either figure before responding, she can rebuild the whole computation in Oquilia's income tax calculator and confirm that staying in the new regime still beats the old one using the old vs new regime comparison, since interest income shifts the break-even point.

Had Ananya instead received a Section 245 intimation proposing to adjust a Rs 30,000 refund against an older demand of Rs 12,000, the same tab would let her either agree to the set-off or contest the older demand within 30 days; a non-response is read as consent and the refund is netted automatically. The discipline is identical across notice types: read the section, note the window, respond with a transaction ID.

FAQ

What is the difference between an intimation under Section 143(1) and a notice under Section 143(2)?

A Section 143(1) intimation is an automated processing summary generated by the Centralised Processing Centre, and only its 143(1)(a) variant, which proposes prima facie adjustments, requires a reply within 30 days. A Section 143(2) notice signals selection for detailed scrutiny under the faceless assessment mandated by Section 144B, and its deadline is stated in the notice itself, so treat the two very differently.

Can I ignore a defective-return notice under Section 139(9) if I disagree with it?

No. You have 15 days from the date of the Section 139(9) intimation to either correct the defect by filing a revised return or explain why the return is not defective through e-Proceedings; if you let the 15 days lapse, the return can be treated as invalid, which means it is as though you never filed and late-filing consequences follow.

How long do I have to file a rectification request under Section 154?

Section 154(7) permits rectification of a mistake apparent from the record within four years from the end of the financial year in which the order sought to be amended was passed. On the portal you initiate it yourself through Pending Actions, and it is the right route only for arithmetic or factual errors, not for fresh claims or changes of opinion.

Who can respond to my e-Proceedings notice on my behalf?

An authorised representative, typically a chartered accountant registered under your e-filing profile, may submit responses on your behalf, and the transaction ID generated on submission records who filed it. This is common where the notice needs supporting documents such as capital-gains statements; you can pre-check those figures using Oquilia's capital gains calculator.

What are the size limits when uploading evidence to e-Proceedings?

The portal accepts a free-text response of up to 4,000 characters and file attachments capped at 5 MB per upload, so bundle multi-page evidence such as bank certificates and Form 26AS extracts into a single compressed PDF that stays under the 5 MB ceiling before you submit.

Will responding to a 143(1)(a) adjustment trigger a penalty?

Agreeing to a genuine prima facie adjustment under Section 143(1)(a) and paying the differential, as in the Rs 20,800 example above, does not by itself invite a separate penalty; penalties under Sections 270A or 271 arise from under-reporting established in a scrutiny assessment, not from a self-corrected processing adjustment.

Is the faceless system the same as the old jurisdiction-based assessment?

No. Under Section 144B, effective 1 April 2021, cases are allocated automatically through the National Faceless Assessment Centre with no named local officer, whereas the pre-2021 system tied each taxpayer to a territorial ward; the faceless design is why every step, including your reply, now runs through the e-Proceedings tab and produces a transaction ID.