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Property — Sale

The buyer deducted TDS on your sale but the credit is not showing

The buyer took the tax off your sale price, but you have no Form 16A and it is nowhere in your Form 26AS, so you cannot claim it.

The buyer withheld a large chunk of your sale price as TDS, as they are supposed to, but the paperwork has broken down. They will not give you the Form 16A certificate, or they filed the quarterly statement against the wrong PAN, or they never filed it at all. The result is that the tax the buyer took out of your money does not appear in your Form 26AS, so when you go to file, you cannot claim credit for it and it looks as if you owe the tax all over again. From abroad, chasing an uncooperative buyer feels hopeless, but the law is firmly on your side here.
Last reviewed: 26 July 20268 min readReviewed by Preetesh Maloo, CA

The short answer

The cleanest fix is to get the buyer to file a correction to their Form 27Q with your correct PAN, after which the credit flows into your Form 26AS and you claim it normally. If the buyer will not cooperate, you are still protected: where tax was deductible at source, which it is on an NRI property sale under Section 195, the law bars the department from recovering that same tax from you again (Section 205), and CBDT has instructed officers not to enforce a demand caused by the deductor's default. That protection is claimed through representation with proof that the tax was deducted, the sale deed and the buyer's bank record of the net payment, not a one-click entry in the return. The buyer, meanwhile, carries interest, a late fee and a penalty for the wrong PAN.

References on this page

  • Section 203, Income-tax Act: the buyer must issue Form 16A for the TDS deducted
  • Section 199 and Rule 37BA: TDS credit is given on the basis of the deductor's statement
  • Section 205, Income-tax Act: bar against demanding tax again where it was deductible at source
  • Section 201 / 234E / 271H: the buyer's interest, late fee and wrong-PAN penalty

Why the credit is not showing in your 26AS

Credit for TDS is given on the basis of the statement the deductor files (Section 199 read with Rule 37BA). So the tax reaches your Form 26AS only when the buyer files their quarterly Form 27Q correctly, against your PAN. If they filed it against the wrong PAN, the credit is mechanically routed to whoever that PAN belongs to, and it will never appear against yours; if they did not file at all, there is nothing to show.

The buyer also has a duty to hand you a Form 16A certificate for the deduction (Section 203), which is your proof of the tax taken. When a buyer withholds the tax but then goes quiet on the paperwork, these are the two failures behind it: no Form 16A, and a Form 27Q that is wrong or missing. Both are the buyer's default, not yours, which is what the remedies below turn on.

The clean fix, and the protection if the buyer will not help

The straightforward route is a correction. The buyer files a revised Form 27Q on the TRACES portal with your correct PAN, and once it reprocesses, the credit flows into your Form 26AS and you claim it in the ordinary way. A practising CA usually gets this done by putting the buyer's exposure to them plainly, because the buyer is the one carrying the penalties.

Where the buyer simply will not cooperate, the law protects you directly. Under Section 205, once tax has been deducted at source, and property TDS under Section 195 is deductible at source, you cannot be asked to pay that tax again, whether or not the buyer deposited it or gave you a certificate. CBDT has instructed its officers not to enforce a demand that arises only because of the deductor's default. The honest caveat is that this is a protection you invoke, not an automatic credit in the software: the system will still flag a mismatch, and you defend it by producing proof of the deduction, the sale deed and the buyer's bank record showing they paid you the net amount, and citing Section 205.

The buyer is the one exposed, which is your leverage

It helps to know how much the buyer stands to lose, because it is what usually gets the correction filed. A buyer who deducted but did not deposit or file properly is an assessee in default and carries interest at 1% or 1.5% a month (Section 201), a late-filing fee of ₹200 a day for the delayed statement (Section 234E), and a penalty of ₹10,000 to ₹1,00,000 for filing the wrong PAN, because that counts as incorrect information (Section 271H).

So the buyer's incentive to fix a correction statement is real and immediate. A practising CA sets this out to the buyer, gets the 27Q corrected where possible, and where it is not, builds and files the Section 205 defence with your evidence so the credit is not denied and no demand is enforced against you.

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What's involved

What the CA actually does

  1. 1

    We identify exactly what broke

    We check whether the buyer filed the Form 27Q, against which PAN, and whether the tax was deposited, so we know whether this is a wrong-PAN, a non-filing or a non-deposit case, each of which is fixed differently.

  2. 2

    We get the buyer to correct the statement

    We set out the buyer's interest, late-fee and penalty exposure and get them to file a corrected Form 27Q with your PAN, which is the clean route that puts the credit into your 26AS.

  3. 3

    We invoke your protection where they will not

    Where the buyer refuses, we build the Section 205 position with proof of the deduction and the net payment, so the credit is allowed and no demand is enforced against you for tax the buyer already took.

  4. 4

    We file and carry it through

    We file your return with the correct gain and the TDS claimed, and we follow any mismatch or demand through to a corrected position and the refund.

What to have ready

Documents you'll typically need

  • The registered sale deed showing the price and the TDS
  • The buyer's bank record or your account showing the net amount received
  • Any Form 16A or challan the buyer did provide
  • The buyer's TAN and PAN details, for the correction

Your destination country can change the details

Requirements differ from one consulate, university and visa route to the next — how recent the figures must be, how long funds must have been held, and which certificates are mandatory. We assemble the documents around the exact checklist you're applying under. To see how India's tax treaty with your country of residence affects related filings, set your country below or compare all 31 countries.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions

Buyer took the TDS but the credit has vanished?

Send us the sale deed and what the buyer did or did not file. A practising CA will get the credit or the protection on a free call, no obligation.

No card, no obligation. All certification and filing work is handled by ICAI-registered practising Chartered Accountants.