Ganesh Chowdhury (Finance professional) 28 January 2012

It refund of a deceased!

Well, does anybody have any idea about the procedure of getting the IT refund in regard of a deceased person. I filed the IT return of my father, who expired in 2010, for the AY 2011-12 with my mothers bank account details for ECS purpose. But the refund was rejected by the bank as it was in the name of my father. Now they are telling to bring a succession certificate to get the refund. But getting a succession certificate is itself a long and costly affair. So I guess there must be some other procedure to proceed in the above situation. Any body any idea?

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Kumar Doab (FIN) 28 January 2012

Legal representative/s may inform the assessing officer and have them brought on record. Their names will have to be substituted in the place of the deceased assessee, so that if it is a demand, it should be met by them. If it is a refund, it will be available to them in their name/s. It follows that in the reader's case, the refund will be available to the legal representatives.

Kindly look into the attachment.

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

Attached File : 332659316 it refund due to deceased.doc downloaded: 170 times

Ganesh Chowdhury (Finance professional) 29 January 2012

Thanks Mr. Kumar for your valuable advice and the link.

I guess the substitution of the name in the place of the deceased assessee will be done on the basis of some documents only. Or in other words what documents are required to show who is the legal representative? And this is the point where I am getting stuck.

Kumar Doab (FIN) 29 January 2012

""The income-tax refund may be got credited in the account of legal representative, who has taken the responsibility of receiving the refunds on behalf of all the legal representatives with their consent."

"The legal heirs under clause (a) are the sons and daughters (including children of any pre-deceased son or daughters) and also spouse of the deceased."

"In case of a dispute between the legal heirs or in the absence of a common consent, the assessing officer may well make all the legal representatives responsible for compliance and payment and insist on an indemnity or a succession certificate for issue of refunds. Sec. 15 of the Hindu Succession Act would specifically provide succession in the case of a Hindu dying intestate."

It shall be appropriate to discuss the matter with locl IT office which has to process the matter or a locl\al CA/IT lawyer with complete details.

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

Ganesh Chowdhury (Finance professional) 30 January 2012

Well, in another IT refund case of my father for AY 2009-10, the ITO asked for an affidavit and an indemnity bond which I subsequenly submitted but its been 4 months since then he has not done the needful. The only option I can see now is using the RTI mode but there are 2 issue to concern about in that case. First my mother has to be the applicant and in case no reply comes, she may be required to visit offices for appeals which I dont want. Second, if on filing an RTI application the ITO asks for a succession certificate, then the case will be closed for me.

If I am not able to reach to a concrete solution here, then I will go for an IT lawyer.