Your return came back with a demand or a smaller refund (Section 143(1))

When you file a return, it is processed automatically at the Centralised Processing Centre. The intimation under Section 143(1) is the result of that processing. The system recomputes your income and tax from the figures you reported, cross-checks them against Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and the tax actually deposited in your name, and sends back one of three outcomes: a refund, a nil position, or a demand.

This is not a scrutiny notice. It does not mean an officer has examined your affairs or formed a view that something is wrong. It is a reconciliation, run by software, and the figure it shows is only as good as the data it matched against. When that data is incomplete or the return claimed something the system couldn't read — a treaty rate, a credit — the intimation throws up a demand or trims the refund.

The intimation is laid out in two columns: "as provided by you in the return" against "as computed under Section 143(1)". Reading those two columns side by side is how you find what the system changed. The fix follows from the line that differs, not from the bottom-line demand.

For non-residents, a handful of causes account for most 143(1) demands and cut refunds. The pattern is almost always a gap between what you claimed and what the system could see.

The treaty-rate case is the most common and the most worth fixing. If you applied your country's lower rate on NRO interest or dividends but the return didn't carry the supporting detail the system expects — the treaty article, residency proof, Form 67 where foreign tax credit is involved — the processing falls back to the full domestic rate and a demand appears. The TDS-credit case is usually a timing or PAN-linking gap: tax was deducted but hasn't landed against your PAN in 26AS yet, so the credit is disallowed. Both are correctable, but only through the right reply.

There are two distinct ways to respond, and using the wrong one wastes the window.

A rectification request under Section 154 is for a mistake apparent from the record — a TDS credit that is clearly in 26AS but wasn't given, an arithmetical slip, a figure the system mis-picked. You file it on the portal against the specific intimation, point to the exact line, and the same processing unit corrects it.

The "disagree with demand" response is the route when a demand has been raised and you are contesting it — for instance, the treaty rate should apply and you are submitting the basis. You select "disagree" (in full or in part) on the portal's outstanding-demand screen and attach your explanation and proof, rather than simply paying.

Getting this choice right matters. A treaty-rate dispute filed as a bare rectification can be rejected because the original return lacked the detail; the same point, raised as a reasoned disagreement with the demand and backed by documents, holds up. A CA looks at which line moved and picks the reply that actually addresses it.

Anjali, an NRI in Singapore, filed her return claiming a refund of about ₹1.05 lakh — TDS of roughly ₹2.1 lakh had been cut on her NRO fixed-deposit interest at 30% (on about ₹7 lakh of interest), and on the India–Singapore treaty rate of 15% her actual liability was closer to ₹1.05 lakh. The 143(1) intimation came back with a refund of only ₹20,000 and no treaty benefit.

Reading the two columns showed what happened: the system had ignored the 15% treaty rate and taxed the interest at 30%, then allowed only the part of the TDS that reconciled cleanly with 26AS. The rest of her claimed credit was sitting against a slightly different PAN-linking on one deposit and hadn't matched.

The reply had two parts. The treaty-rate point went in as a "disagree with demand / refund" response, with her Tax Residency Certificate and Form 10F (now Form 41 from FY 2026-27 under the Income-tax Act 2025) supporting the 15% rate. The unmatched TDS went in as a rectification under Section 154, pointing to the deposit and the corrected 26AS entry once the bank refiled. Once both were accepted, the refund was restored close to the original ₹1.05 lakh figure. The numbers here are illustrative; the route — separate the treaty point from the credit point — is what the case turned on.

The intimation states a period within which to respond — read that date off your own notice rather than assuming a standard one, because it varies with the type of response and the cycle. Treat it as a hard date.

If the window passes without a reply, the demand doesn't disappear. It becomes an outstanding demand on your portal account, and the department can recover it — most commonly by setting it off against a future refund under Section 245, which is a separate process covered on our related page on refunds adjusted against a demand. A rectification under Section 154 can still be filed later for a genuine apparent error, but contesting the substance of the demand is far cleaner inside the original window than after recovery has started.

If you have already missed it and a refund is now being held back, the position is recoverable but the steps differ — that is the Section 245 route, not this one.

A different email you might get is one that says your return is defective. This is not a demand and not a scrutiny — it means the return you filed is incomplete or inconsistent in some way the system can't process, so it has been put on hold until you fix it (Section 139(9)).

The usual defects are mundane. The most common are tax shown as payable but not actually paid, a mismatch between the income you reported and the tax credit claimed, a schedule left blank that your income required, or the wrong ITR form for the kind of income you have — an NRI who used a resident form, for instance, or a form that doesn't allow the income heads you entered.

You get a short window to put it right — commonly fifteen days from when the notice is issued. You log in to the portal, open the notice under the e-Proceedings or pending-actions tab, and either agree the defect and upload a corrected return, or explain why you disagree. If you need longer, you can ask for more time, and an officer will often accept a corrected return filed a little late where the reason is genuine — but the safe assumption is the fifteen days stated on your own notice.

The reason this matters: if you let the window pass without responding, the return is treated as invalid — as though you never filed at all. That can drag in late-filing fees and interest, and it can cost you a refund you were due. Curing the one specific defect named is what keeps your original filing alive.

Sometimes the mismatch traces back to your Annual Information Statement (AIS) — the portal's record of what banks, brokers, registrars and others have reported against your PAN. If you open it and find a sale, a deposit or an income entry that isn't yours, or one with the wrong amount, you don't argue it by email. The AIS has a built-in feedback channel for exactly this.

You open the AIS on the portal, find the specific entry, and submit feedback against it. The options you choose from include that the information is not fully correct, that it relates to another PAN or another year, that it is a duplicate of something already counted, that it is denied because the transaction simply didn't happen, or that the figure should be modified to the correct amount.

For non-residents, a few causes recur. A bank or broker maps a transaction to the wrong PAN. A joint holder's full deposit gets reported against you rather than split. A sale you weren't party to is tagged to you because of a shared address or an old record. None of these are accusations — they are reporting errors that you correct at source.

Once you submit feedback, the disputed entry is flagged and routed back to the reporting source to confirm or correct, and the corrected figure is what flows into your information summary and any pre-filled return. Keep the proof that backs your feedback. If that same transaction later turns up behind a notice, the recorded feedback and your evidence are what answer it cleanly.

A notice under Section 142(1) is the department asking questions before it finalises an assessment. It is an inquiry, not a verdict — the officer wants information, accounts or an explanation on specific points, and the same provision can also be used to call for a return where one wasn't filed.

For an NRI the questions usually go to a handful of things: your residential status for the year, the source of money behind a deposit or a purchase, the treaty rate you applied, or the backup for a deduction or credit you claimed. The notice lists what it wants and gives you a date to reply by.

The way to answer is to take the questionnaire one point at a time and put a documented answer against each — bank statements for a credit, the remittance advice for money brought in from abroad, the Tax Residency Certificate where residence is in question, Form 16A for a TDS claim, the computation for a figure. You file the reply through the e-Proceedings section of the portal; there is no office visit.

Replying fully and on time usually closes the inquiry there. Ignoring it is the costly path: the officer can proceed to a best-judgement assessment on the information available (Section 144), and a separate penalty can be charged for not complying. So the safe approach is to treat every line of the notice as needing its own evidenced answer rather than a general explanation.

Scrutiny is the heavier step — an actual examination of your return rather than the automated check a 143(1) intimation runs. It starts with a notice under Section 143(2) telling you the return has been selected and on which issues, and it is now run faceless: there is no local officer you meet, and the case is handled through the National Faceless Assessment Centre on the portal (Section 144B).

In practice it plays out as e-proceedings. A unit issues questionnaires, you upload the documents and explanations asked for, and everything stays on the record. You can ask for a hearing, and if you request one it is held by video — not in person — so even a scrutiny is answered from wherever you live.

For NRIs the questions tend to cluster around treaty positions, residential status and where funds came from — the same themes that drive most mismatches in the first place. Before the assessment is finalised, if the unit intends to change your income against you, it must first put that proposed change to you in a show-cause and give you a chance to reply, so you are not surprised by the final order.

What carries a faceless scrutiny is the quality and timeliness of what you put on the record — complete, documented replies filed within each window. Because the whole exchange is written and electronic, a well-organised set of answers and proof does the work that an in-person explanation once did.

A different message you may get is a short SMS or email from the department pointing at a single transaction — often a property purchase, a large deposit, a mutual-fund or share sale — and saying it doesn't see a matching return, or that the transaction needs confirming. This is the e-campaign (the e-Verification / Compliance Portal nudge), and it is the gentlest contact the department makes. It is not a notice, not a demand, and not scrutiny. It is the system flagging that something reported against your PAN — through the AIS and the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) — doesn't line up with what you filed.

For an NRI the usual trigger is reporting that arrived without context. The sub-registrar reported a flat you bought, a bank reported an NRO deposit, a registrar reported a redemption — and either no return was filed for that year, or the return didn't carry the transaction. The system can't tell, on its own, that the money was a clean inward remittance or that you weren't required to file; it only sees a gap.

You don't reply by email. You log in to the portal, open Pending Actions and the Compliance Portal, find the e-campaign item, and respond against it. There are two honest answers, depending on the facts:

The reason to deal with it promptly is that this is the cheap stage. An e-campaign that is answered cleanly usually ends there. One that is ignored is exactly what later hardens into a 148A show-cause on the same transaction — the heavier road covered on our 148A property-source page — so a short, documented response now is what keeps it from escalating.

When a 143(1) intimation shows tax payable, it doesn't just state a figure — it carries a formal notice of demand under Section 156. In fact the law treats the sum payable under a 143(1) intimation as a Section 156 demand in its own right, which is why you'll sometimes see both numbers referenced together.

What that means in practice is a clock. A notice of demand under Section 156 ordinarily gives thirty days to pay the amount stated. So the moment a 143(1) intimation raises a demand, two separate things are running at once: the window to dispute the mismatch (rectification or disagree-with-demand, covered above) and the thirty-day window on the demand itself.

The two are not the same, and confusing them is where NRIs get caught. Disputing the demand on the portal is how you contest whether the figure is right; the Section 156 thirty days is about when the unpaid amount starts attracting recovery and interest. If you genuinely owe part of it, paying that part inside the window stops interest building on it. If you are contesting the whole figure — say the treaty rate was ignored — you record the disagreement rather than paying, but you do it inside the window rather than letting the demand sit. Where you need more time, an extension or instalment request can be made before the period runs out, not after.

The practical rule: read the demand notice for its own date, separate the part you accept from the part you contest, and act on both before the thirty days lapse — because an unanswered Section 156 demand is what the department later recovers, including by holding back a future refund (Section 245).

Not every information request is a 142(1) questionnaire. A notice under Section 133(6) is a narrower tool: it lets an officer call for information on a specific transaction or account — and it can be sent to you, or to your bank, broker or the other side of a deal, to confirm a figure independently. It is a verification request, not an assessment, and it often arrives outside any pending proceeding.

For an NRI the common triggers are a credit the department wants to trace: a large sum landing in an NRO account, an inward remittance, an overseas-employment payment, or a transaction linked to a foreign entity. The officer isn't yet saying anything is wrong — they are checking that what shows against your PAN is what you say it is.

The reply is online. You answer through the e-filing portal against the notice, point by point, with the documents that confirm each item — the bank statement for a credit, the remittance advice for money brought in from abroad, the contract or deed behind a transaction, your residential-status position where the source turns on it. Where the notice went to your bank rather than to you, it helps to keep your own copies of the same records so your account and the bank's confirmation match.

Replying fully and on time usually closes the verification with no further step. Leaving it unanswered carries a penalty for non-compliance and tends to convert a routine check into something heavier — so even though a 133(6) looks minor, it is worth treating with the same documented, point-by-point care as any other notice.