Income-tax returns: What is assisted filing, who are authorised representatives, eligibility and factors explained

Income-tax returns: The income-tax department has released excel utility of its ITR-1 (Sahaj), ITR-2, ITR-3, and ITR-4 (Sugam) online forms for financial year 2025-26 i.e. assessment year 2026-27 and notified all ITR forms 1-5 for this tax year (FY26 / AY27).

Notably, availability of excel utility means that you can prepare your returns offline before uploading them digitally. Taxpayers have till 31 August to file their returns by logging into the e-filing portal with your User ID and password. Notably, this deadline has been extended by a month from 31 July earlier.

Today we explain what ITR assisted filing is, who is allowed to assist taxpayers, who is considered authorised representative, requirements and eligibility criteria and other important factors.

ITR: What is assisted filing, explained

Assisted filing is when a taxpayer has a Chartered Accountant (CA), e-Return intermediaries (ERIs) or authorised representative assist taxpayers with their ITR filing or any other related services.

• CA: A Chartered Accountant (CA) is a person who is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). In order to allow a CA to assist you, you have to add and assign a CA through the e-filing portal (using My CA service). Additionally, you can remove an added CA or withdraw an already assigned CA assigned on the e-Filing portal.
• ERIs: e-Return intermediaries (ERIs) are authorised intermediaries who can file ITR and perform other functions on the behalf of taxpayers. These are of three types as follows:

— Type 1 ERIs: File Income Tax Returns / Forms using Income Tax Department utility / Income Tax Department approved utilities through e-filing portal.

— Type 2 ERIs: Create their own software application/portal to file Income Tax Returns / Forms on the e-Filing portal through Application Programming Interface provided by Income Tax Department

— Type 3 ERIs: Develop their own offline software utilities instead of using Income Tax Department utility available on the e-Filing portal to enable the users to file Income Tax Returns / Forms.

In order to allow an ERI to assist you, you have to add it using My ERI service on the official portal. You can activate, deactivate or remove an added ERI as required.

• Authorised Representatives: This is a person who is competent to act on your behalf with specific authorisation if you are not able to attend to their Income Tax related affairs on your own. To allow an authorised representative to assist you, you have to add them using the Authorize / Register as Representative service on portal.

Circumstances to appoint authorised representative

An Assessee can authorize someone else to act on their behalf if they are unable to act on their own for the reasons mentioned. A user can register to act on behalf of another person to carry out their activities in e-Filing portal under circumstances mentioned below:

Which services can the partners assist you with?

Some of the services that a CA can assist with through e-Filing portal are:

• File Statutory Forms (once the person is added as a CA by the taxpayer and has has accepted the request)
• e-Verify the forms assigned by taxpayer
• Upload bulk form (Form 15CB)
• View filed Statutory Forms
• View & Submit Grievances
• Set higher security Login options through Profile
• Register DSC

Type 1 and Type 2 ERIs can execute the following services on behalf of their client:

• File Returns & Statutory Forms
• Add Client (Registered & Unregistered Users)
• Activate Client, extend Client Validity, extend Service Validity, add Service
• Condonation Request for delay in submission of ITR-V
• Add Authorized Representative, authorize another person to act on behalf of self
• Register as representative Assessee, register to act on behalf of other person
• File Income tax forms, refund re-issue request, rectification request
• Condonation request for filing ITR after time barred
• Update Primary Contact details as per Bank Account verified contact details
• Update Primary Contact details as per Demat Account verified contact details.