Who is an Assessee in Income Tax Act, 1961 ?
Assessee means any person (i.e., Individual, HUF, Firm, Company, AOP/BOI, etc.), who are liable to pay any Tax or any other sum of money (i.e., penalty or interest) under the IT Act. Assessee can also include representative Assessee.
Further, Assessee also “INCLUDES” the following categories of person : –
- Person in respect of whom any proceedings have been undertaken for (whether or not ultimately tax is found payable from him)
- Assessment of his income or loss incurred by him ;
- Assessment of income or loss incurred by any other person, for whom he is assessable (“Estate of a Deceased person”) ;
- Assessment of refund due to him or any other person
- Persons who is deemed to be an Assessee (e.g. representative assesses u/s 160 for non-resident) under the IT Act.
- Persons Deemed to be an Assessee in default for the following : –
- Non-deduction/ Deduction but non deposit of tax – Section 201(1)
- Non-deposit of advance tax – Section 218
An Assessee can include the following categories of taxpayer : –
- Individual;
- Hindu Undivided Family
- Company;
- Firm;
- An Association of Persons or Body of individuals ;
- A Local Authority ; and
- Every Artificial Juridical person not falling above, idol or deity.
Meaning of Representative Assessee- Section 160, Income Tax Act, 1961
In certain cases, a non-resident may derive certain income from India, however, they do not have any physical presence in India. In such cases, if the non-resident does not pay the tax liability, it is very difficult for the Indian government to track such non-residents and recover the tax payable by them. To do with such cases, the law provides that certain persons would be treated as agent of non-resident in India. Generally, the person who has a business relation with non-resident, or are liable to make some payments to the non-resident, are considered as the agent of non-resident in India. The impact of this is, that in case the non-resident does not discharge their tax liability, the tax office can recover the tax demand from such person who are treated as agents of non-residents in India.
Section 9(1) specifies cases wherein income of non-resident shall be deemed to accrue or arise in India.“Representative assessee” , in respect of the income of a non-resident specified in Section 9(1), means the agent of the non-resident, including a person who is treated as an agent under Section 163 .Every representative assessee shall be deemed to be an assessee for the purposes of the IT Act [Section 160(2)]
