Responding to Indian Income-Tax Notices as an NRI: Which One You Got, the Response Clock, and How to Reply From Abroad

A notice from the Indian Income Tax Department lands in your inbox at 2am London time, subject line in officialese, a PDF attachment, and a deadline counted in days. You are 7,000 km from the nearest tax office, you left India years ago, and your first instinct is that something has gone badly wrong. For the overwhelming majority of NRIs it has not. The notice is almost always the department's computers noticing that a number on their side does not match a number on yours: an NRO interest credit you forgot, a flat you sold, a TDS entry the bank reported that never made it onto a return because you did not file one. What separates a cheap outcome from an expensive one is not whether you panic. It is whether you read the section number at the top, start the right clock, and reply with documents before that clock runs out.

The 30-second answer: Most NRI tax notices are data-matching, not accusations. The common ones are a Section 143(1) intimation (auto-processing of your return; a 143(1)(a) adjustment needs a reply in 30 days), a Section 139(9) defective return (15 days), a Section 142(1) inquiry (as stated, often 15 days), a Section 148, now Section 280, reassessment (escaped income; 30 days, preceded by a 148A/281 show-cause), and a Section 245 refund adjustment (now 15 days from AY 2024-25, not 30). NRIs get them mainly for TDS mismatch, property sales reported under SFT, and unreported NRO interest. You reply entirely online via e-Proceedings on incometax.gov.in, from anywhere. Silence is treated as agreement. Get a CA for any 148/280 reassessment, 142(1) scrutiny, or escaped income near Rs 50 lakh.

For the full filing walkthrough that prevents most of these notices in the first place, see the hub guide: ITR filing for NRIs, AY 2026-27. This article is the companion you reach for after the return is filed, or after you skipped filing and the department came looking. What follows is the part that actually decides the outcome: which notice you are holding and what it can and cannot do to you, the exact response clock on each, how an NRI replies on the portal from abroad, what specifically triggers each one, and the honest line on when to stop and hire a chartered accountant.

The single thing that decides everything: which section, which year, which clock

Before you read a word of the contents, find three things at the top of the PDF: the section it is issued under, the assessment year (AY) it relates to, and the response deadline. A 143(1) intimation and a 148 reassessment notice both arrive as a PDF in the same inbox, but one is routine arithmetic and the other can reopen a six-year-old year and attach a 200% penalty. The section tells you which it is. The AY tells you which residency status applied, which changes what was even taxable. The deadline tells you how long you have before silence becomes consent.

Then confirm the notice is real, because tax-notice phishing aimed at NRIs is common; scammers know an expat is anxious and far away. Every genuine communication issued since 2019 carries a Document Identification Number (DIN), a unique code. A communication without a DIN is, by the department's own circular, invalid and deemed never issued. To verify, go to incometax.gov.in and under Quick Links use "Authenticate notice/order issued by ITD", enter the DIN, and the portal confirms whether the department issued it. Never click a payment link inside an emailed notice, never share your e-filing password, and never act on a WhatsApp message claiming to be from the department. The department reaches you through your registered email, your registered mobile, and the portal itself, never through payment apps or social media.

The notices an NRI actually receives, and what each one can do to you

Section 143(1): an intimation, not really a notice

After you file, the Centralised Processing Centre runs the return through an automated check and issues an intimation under Section 143(1). It is the most common communication and usually nothing to fear. It compares the income and tax you reported against the TDS in your Form 26AS and the department's own arithmetic, and lands on one of three outcomes: a refund, a demand, or no difference. The intimation can issue up to nine months from the end of the financial year in which you filed, so a return filed in July 2026 (FY 2025-26) can be processed any time up to 31 December 2026. If you never get one in that window, the acknowledgement itself is deemed to be your 143(1), meaning nothing was changed.

The version that needs a reply is the Section 143(1)(a) adjustment communication, sent before the system finalises a change it proposes to make, asking you to agree or disagree with each variance. The clock on that is 30 days from the date of issue, and non-response means the adjustment is made automatically. If the finalised 143(1) is simply wrong, for instance it ignored TDS sitting in your 26AS, you do not respond to the intimation; you file a rectification under Section 154 on the portal, choosing the "tax credit mismatch" type so the system re-reads your 26AS.

Section 139(9): your return is defective, and the window is short

A Section 139(9) notice says your filed return is defective, meaning incomplete or internally inconsistent, and gives you a window to fix it. For NRIs the usual triggers are concrete and avoidable: claiming a TDS credit without offering the matching income, a mismatch between income heads and schedules, the name in the ITR not matching the PAN database, and the classic one, choosing the wrong ITR form, an NRI with capital gains or more than one house filing ITR-1 instead of ITR-2. For AY 2026-27 the department's automated filters are stricter than in prior years and flag form-mismatches faster.

You typically get 15 days from receipt to respond, either by correcting the defect through a fresh submission or by explaining why the return is not in fact defective. An extension is possible on request, but do not build a plan around it. The penalty for letting it lapse is severe and specific: the return is treated as invalid, as if you never filed, which costs you the refund, the ability to carry forward capital losses, and exposes you to late-filing consequences. A corrected return must then be e-verified, which for many NRIs is the real bottleneck, covered below.

Section 142(1): the inquiry before assessment

A Section 142(1) notice is the Assessing Officer asking for something specific: to file a return if you have not, to produce accounts and documents, or to furnish information on named points. For NRIs it commonly follows a property sale or a large NRO transaction, with the officer wanting the sale deed, the cost of acquisition, the capital-gains computation, or proof of the source of funds. There is no single fixed period; the notice states it, often 15 days. Treat this one more seriously than a 143(1), because it is the gateway to a scrutiny assessment under Section 143(3). Ignoring it can lead to a best-judgement assessment under Section 144, where the officer estimates your income on the least favourable assumptions, plus a penalty under Section 272A.

Section 148, now Section 280: reassessment

This is the one that genuinely warrants attention, and the one where the law just changed under your feet. A Section 148 notice means the Assessing Officer believes income chargeable to tax has escaped assessment and intends to reassess a past year. Before issuing it, the officer must run the Section 148A show-cause procedure: hand you the information they hold, give you a chance to respond, and pass a reasoned order on whether it is a fit case to reopen.

The structural change every NRI should register: the Income-tax Act 2025 came into force on 1 April 2026 and renumbers the reassessment machinery. Old Section 147 (income escaping assessment) becomes new Section 279; old Section 148 (the notice) becomes Section 280; old Section 148A (the show-cause) becomes Section 281; old Section 149 (time limits) becomes Section 282. The four-step logic is preserved; only the numbers on the notice change with its issue date. Crucially, by the saving clause in Section 536, any proceeding already pending on 1 April 2026, one where a 148A(1) notice had already gone out under the old Act, continues to run entirely under the 1961 Act language. So a notice you received in, say, February 2026 is a "148/148A" matter start to finish, while one issued after April 2026 will read "280/281".

The reopening windows, as amended by the Finance (No. 2) Act 2024 and carried into the new Act, are shorter than the old 3-or-10-year regime and turn on the Rs 50 lakh threshold. With no threshold crossed, a notice can issue up to about 4 years and 3 months from the end of the relevant tax year. Where the escaped income is Rs 50 lakh or more, evidenced by an asset, expenditure or entry, the window stretches to about 6 years and 3 months. To make that concrete: for tax year 2019-20, where escaped income is Rs 50 lakh or more, the outer date for issuing a Section 280 notice or a Section 281 order has been fixed at 30 June 2026. The reply window on the notice itself is short, commonly 30 days for the 148/280 notice and up to 60 days specified in the 148A/281 show-cause. If you are holding any of these, treat the Rs 50 lakh threshold and the reopening date as the load-bearing facts and bring in a CA before you reply; the show-cause stage is where a good adviser can keep the year from being reopened at all.

Section 245: the refund set-off, and the clock that quietly shrank

A Section 245 intimation tells you the department intends to set off a refund due to you this year against an outstanding demand from an earlier year. This trips up NRIs because the "earlier demand" is often a ghost, a 143(1) demand from a year you never knew about, frequently itself caused by a TDS mismatch on NRO interest. You can disagree on the portal if the old demand is wrong or already paid, and the refund is then held pending resolution rather than grabbed.

Two points the older guides get wrong. First, the clock: the response window on a 245 was 30 days, but from AY 2024-25 it is 15 days, and after that the outstanding demand is adjusted against your refund automatically, with interest. Do not assume you have a month. Second, the delegation limit: most proceedings can be handled by your Authorised Representative, but a 245 refund adjustment, and the related Response to Outstanding Demand, must be filed from your own login. Keep your portal credentials accessible even if a CA runs everything else.

AIS mismatch and high-value-transaction prompts

These are often not formal notices under a section at all. The department runs an e-campaign and compliance portal that flags high-value transactions and AIS mismatches by email and SMS, asking you to confirm, revise, or explain. The data comes from the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) that banks, sub-registrars, mutual funds and Authorised Dealers file: property above Rs 30 lakh, large deposits, dividend and interest credits, securities transactions, and inward remittances. For NRIs the classic mismatch is the AIS showing gross NRO interest while you reported only the net after TDS, or a property sale in the AIS you did not report. You respond on the compliance portal by marking each item correct, partly correct, duplicate, or relating to another person, with a brief explanation. Clearing these promptly is the cheapest move in this entire guide, because it often heads off a full 143(1)(a) or 142(1) escalation later.

What each notice has cost in deadlines, at a glance

Notice	What it means	Response clock	If you ignore it
143(1) intimation	Auto-processing of your return	None for the intimation itself; issued up to 9 months from FY-end	Acknowledgement stands; pay any genuine demand
143(1)(a) adjustment	System proposes to change a figure	30 days	Adjustment made automatically
139(9) defective	Return incomplete or wrong form	15 days (extension on request)	Return treated as invalid, refund and loss carry-forward lost
142(1) inquiry	AO wants documents or a return	As stated, often 15 days	Best-judgement assessment under Section 144, penalty 272A
148 / 280 reassessment	Income escaped assessment	30 days (148A/281 show-cause up to 60 days)	Reopening on worst assumptions, penalty 270A up to 200%
245 refund set-off	Refund netted against old demand	15 days (from your own login)	Refund grabbed automatically, with interest
AIS / high-value prompt	Data mismatch flagged	No fixed period; sooner is better	Escalation to a formal 143(1)(a) or 142(1)

Across every row, non-response is read as agreement or non-compliance, never as a safe default.

Why these notices land on NRIs specifically

Almost every NRI notice traces back to one of three data points the department already holds, and knowing which one is behind yours usually tells you the answer before you open the PDF.

TDS mismatch is the biggest. As a non-resident you have tax deducted on NRO interest at 30% plus 4% cess, 31.2%, under Section 195, and buyers deduct on property under Section 195 too. Every paisa is reported against your PAN in Form 26AS and the AIS. If you did not file, or filed a different figure, the computers see TDS with no matching income and a notice follows. The reflex error is assuming that 31.2% was the final word; it is an advance against your actual liability, and on NRO interest taxed at slab rates after a DTAA cap, you are frequently owed money back. See Form 26AS and AIS for NRIs for reading these statements and TDS for NRIs and refunds for recovering the excess.

Property sales are the second. A sale registers with the sub-registrar, who reports it under SFT, and the buyer's TDS under Section 195 is logged. If you left India without filing for the gain, or computed it wrongly, the department has the full picture from the registrar's side, while you may have nothing on record at all. The walkthrough is in Selling property in India as an NRI.

Unreported NRO interest is the quietest and most common trigger. The bank reports the gross interest; you either never filed, assuming the TDS was final, or under-reported. The mechanics of why a return is the only way to reconcile it are in Tax on NRO interest. Behind all three sits a structural shift: India exchanges financial-account data under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), and the Income-tax Act 2025 has widened and digitised enforcement. The department genuinely sees more of your Indian, and even your overseas, financial footprint than it did five years ago, so the strategy of staying quiet and hoping has a shorter shelf life every year.

How an NRI actually replies, from a laptop abroad

Everything is online and faceless, so being abroad changes nothing about your ability to comply. Log in at incometax.gov.in with your PAN as the user ID. If your registered mobile is an old Indian SIM you no longer carry, update it in your profile first or use the email OTP, because several flows send an OTP. Go to Pending Actions, then e-Proceedings, the single screen listing every open notice, each with its deadline and a View Notice button. Open the PDF, click Submit Response, and for an adjustment under 143(1)(a) or a 245 set-off, go variance by variance selecting Agree or Disagree, with a reason and a document required for each disagreement. Upload supporting documents as PDFs, Form 26AS, the AIS, bank interest certificates, TDS certificates (Form 16A), the sale deed and cost-of-acquisition proof for property, and a computation sheet, each within the size limit. Then submit, e-verify, and download the acknowledgement with its transaction ID. That acknowledgement is your proof of timely compliance, so save it.

The most common thing that derails an NRI here is not the response itself but e-verification. Any corrected or revised return, and many response flows, must be e-verified, normally via Aadhaar OTP, net banking, or a Digital Signature Certificate. Many NRIs have no active Aadhaar OTP path, so the practical routes are net-banking e-verification through your NRO account bank or a DSC. This is a setup task with a lead time; do it the week the notice arrives, not on the last day.

Put real numbers on it: the NRO interest mismatch that became a 245 set-off

Consider Anjali, a software engineer in Toronto, NRI since 2019, with an NRO fixed deposit in India. In FY 2024-25 the FD credited Rs 4,20,000 of interest, and the bank deducted TDS at 31.2%, Rs 1,31,040. Anjali assumed that was final and did not file for AY 2025-26. The bank, of course, reported the gross Rs 4,20,000 and the Rs 1,31,040 against her PAN in the AIS. Her actual liability, at slab rates with the India-Canada treaty rate of 15% on interest under Section 90, was well below what was withheld, so she was in fact owed a refund. But because a similar mismatch in AY 2023-24 had already been auto-assessed against her, a phantom 143(1) demand of Rs 38,000 sat on the system that she had never noticed.

The following year she finally filed for AY 2026-27, and a refund of Rs 55,000 was computed. Before releasing it, the department issued a Section 245 intimation proposing to net the Rs 55,000 against the old Rs 38,000, leaving her Rs 17,000. Inside the 15-day window, she logged in, opened the 245 under e-Proceedings, and disagreed, on the ground that the AY 2023-24 demand was itself a TDS-mismatch error. She then filed a Section 154 rectification for AY 2023-24 with her Form 26AS attached, showing the TDS the original 143(1) had ignored. Once the rectification wiped the Rs 38,000, the full Rs 55,000 refund was released with interest under Section 244A. Had she let the 15 days pass, the set-off would have been automatic and she would have chased the difference for months. The counterfactual is stark: not filing did not make a notice go away, it manufactured two of them, and cost her the use of her own refund for over a year.

Put real numbers on it again: the property sale that triggered a 148A reassessment

Now take Rohan, an NRI in Dubai, who sold an inherited flat in Pune in FY 2021-22 for Rs 1,10,00,000. The buyer, unsure of the rules, deducted TDS under Section 194-IA at 1%, Rs 1,10,000, the rate meant for resident sellers, instead of the higher Section 195 rate that applies when the seller is an NRI. Rohan, busy and abroad, did not file for that year and did not report the gain. Three years later, in 2025, the department's data showed a registrar SFT entry for a Rs 1.1 crore sale linked to his PAN, with no return and no capital-gains declaration. Because the escaped income plausibly exceeded Rs 50 lakh, the case fell in the longer reassessment window.

The Assessing Officer issued a Section 148A show-cause, setting out the SFT information and inviting Rohan to explain why the year should not be reopened. He engaged a chartered accountant in India, who computed the real position. Inherited property takes the previous owner's cost and holding period, so with indexation and the Section 54 exemption for reinvestment in a new house, the actual taxable long-term gain was Rs 22,00,000, not the headline Rs 1.1 crore. LTCG tax at 20% with indexation, the option available for property acquired before 23 July 2024, came to roughly Rs 4,40,000 plus cess and interest under Sections 234A, 234B and 234C. The CA filed a detailed 148A reply with the sale deed, the inheritance documents, the indexation working and the reinvestment proof. The officer accepted that the escaped income was the Rs 22 lakh gain, not the gross Rs 1.1 crore, issued the Section 148 notice for that gain only, and Rohan filed the reassessment return, paid the tax plus interest, and claimed credit for the Rs 1,10,000 the buyer had already deducted.

The counterfactual here is the whole point. Had Rohan ignored the 148A, the officer could have treated a large slice of the Rs 1.1 crore as unexplained income, taxed it on the worst assumptions under Section 144, and added a Section 270A penalty of up to 200% of the tax on the under-reported amount. On a Rs 1.1 crore base that exposure runs to tens of lakhs; the CA's fee was a rounding error against it. The full mechanics are in Capital gains tax for NRIs on shares and mutual funds and the property-specific rules in Selling property in India as an NRI.

The edge cases that catch NRIs out

Your registered mobile is a dead Indian SIM. OTP login and e-verification stall the moment you need them. Update the contact details in your profile early and set up net-banking e-verification through your NRO bank, or a DSC, as a fallback. This is the most common reason an NRI misses an otherwise easy deadline.

You appointed a CA, but the notice is a 245. Authorised Representatives can act for most proceedings, but a 245 refund adjustment and the Response to Outstanding Demand must be answered from your own login. Do not assume your CA can file it for you.

The notice relates to a year you were resident or RNOR. Your status for that exact assessment year decides what was taxable. A year you were RNOR shields most foreign income; a year you were ordinarily resident does not. Pin down the residency for the precise AY before drafting any reply. See NRI residency and RNOR rules.

The buyer deducted TDS at 1% instead of the NRI rate. As in Rohan's case, a Section 194-IA 1% deduction on a sale by a non-resident is wrong; the correct provision is Section 195, and the shortfall can surface as a notice years later. Going forward, a lower-deduction certificate under Form 13 is the clean fix, applied for before the sale; see Lower TDS certificate, Form 13.

You missed the original filing and the year is still open. The updated return (ITR-U) window was extended to 48 months from the end of the relevant assessment year by the Finance Act 2025, so years you might have assumed were closed may still be voluntarily regularisable. The cost climbs with delay: additional tax of 25% in the first year, 50% in the second, 60% in the third year and 70% in the fourth, on top of the tax and interest. Filing an ITR-U is almost always a better posture than waiting for a 148/280 to find you, but on a large or close-to-the-threshold gain, have a CA confirm whether the window and the cost stack up before you file.

The demand is genuinely old and you cannot reconstruct records. You can still file a rectification, or where the demand is time-barred or clearly wrong, raise a grievance on the portal. Do not pay a demand you do not understand just to make it stop; disagree on record first, because paying can be read as acceptance.

The honest read

The honest read is that an Indian tax notice arriving in your inbox abroad is, in nine cases out of ten, an administrative reconciliation, not an accusation. The department's computers found a number on their side, your NRO interest, a property sale, a TDS entry, with no matching number on yours. The fix is almost always to read the section, start the right clock, log in, show the real figures with documents, and submit before the deadline.

Two rules carry most of the weight, and they decide the money. Never let the clock run, because the windows are shorter than people assume: 30 days on a 143(1)(a), now just 15 days on a 245, 15 days on a 139(9), and silence on any of them is read as consent. And never treat the 31.2% TDS on NRO interest, or a buyer's TDS on your property, as final; it is an advance, and the only way to reconcile it, refund the excess, or correctly size a gain is to file and engage.

On who does the work, commit to this split. A 143(1) intimation, a clean 139(9) defect, an AIS tick-box, or a straightforward 245 disagreement are well within an organised NRI's reach on the portal in an evening, and you should do them yourself rather than pay for them. But the moment you see Section 148 or 280, a 142(1) scrutiny, escaped income near or above Rs 50 lakh, or anything touching property capital gains and exemptions, hire a chartered accountant in India, and engage them at the show-cause stage, not after the year is reopened. The fee is small against a best-judgement assessment and a 270A penalty, and as both Anjali and Rohan show, a good CA often turns a frightening notice into a refund. Calm, documented, and on time beats panic every single day with this department.

Related guides

• ITR filing for NRIs, AY 2026-27
• Form 26AS and AIS for NRIs
• TDS for NRIs and refunds
• Tax on NRO interest
• Capital gains tax for NRIs on shares and mutual funds
• NRI residency and RNOR rules
• Lower TDS certificate, Form 13
• Selling property in India as an NRI
• NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts explained
• All taxation guides
• All banking guides
• All investment guides

Disclaimer

This guide is general information for Indian expats, current to June 2026, and is not tax or legal advice. The Income-tax Act 2025 came into force on 1 April 2026 and renumbers many provisions (reassessment moves from Sections 147/148/148A to Sections 279/280/281), while proceedings pending on that date continue under the 1961 Act by the saving clause; the exact section, time limit, and reply window that apply to your notice depend on its issue date, your residency for that assessment year, and the relevant Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement. Response windows have changed recently (the Section 245 window is now 15 days from AY 2024-25). Verify the live deadline on the e-filing portal and, for any reassessment, scrutiny, or amount near or above Rs 50 lakh, consult a qualified chartered accountant before responding.