Home › Updated return u/s 139(8A)
Section 139(8A) · ITR-U
You left something out. What does it cost to fix?
Interest income that never reached the return. A capital gain the broker reported and you did not. Once the revised and belated windows have closed, an updated return is what is left — and Section 140B puts a price on it that depends entirely on how long you wait.
Which return you actually need
An updated return is the last of three instruments, not the first. Reaching for it while an earlier one is still open costs money for nothing.
| If… | File | Extra cost |
|---|---|---|
| You have not filed at all and the due date has passed | Belated return u/s 139(4), until 31 December 2026 for AY 2026-27 | Fee u/s 234F and interest |
| You have filed, and found a mistake before 31 December | Revised return u/s 139(5) | Nothing extra |
| Both of those windows have closed | Updated return u/s 139(8A) | 25% or 50% u/s 140B |
The additional tax u/s 140B is charged on the increase in liability, not on the whole tax — and the increase includes the interest and fee that come with it. Below 24 months the arithmetic is straightforward; the trap is the step from 25% to 50%, which falls on a calendar month and not on a date.
What the additional tax comes to
Your own figures. The calculator applies the Section 140B windows and the same aggregation BharatTax uses when it prepares the return itself.
The calculator needs JavaScript. The two windows are 25% within twelve months of the end of the assessment year and 50% in the twelve months after.
What 139(8A) will not do
An updated return runs one way. Section 139(8A) does not permit a return that reduces the tax payable, increases a refund, or reduces a loss carried forward. If your corrected figures come to less than the ones already filed, an ITR-U is not the instrument — and BharatTax says so rather than handing you a number.
It also cannot be used to declare a loss where the original return showed income, and it does not reopen a choice of regime that was already exercised.
The reason you have to give
Every updated return carries one of eight reasons, and the portal rejects a return that does not name one:
- Return previously not filed
- Income not reported correctly
- Wrong heads of income chosen
- Reduction of carried forward loss
- Reduction of unabsorbed depreciation
- Reduction of tax credit u/s 115JB / 115JC
- Wrong rate of tax
- Others
The longer you leave it
The additional tax is not one rate. It steps up with each twelve months that pass after the end of the assessment year, and the step falls on a calendar month rather than on the anniversary of anything you did.
| Filed within | Additional tax u/s 140B |
|---|---|
| twelve months of the end of the assessment year | 25% |
| 24 months of the end of the assessment year | 50% |
| 36 months of the end of the assessment year | 60% |
| 48 months of the end of the assessment year | 70% |
After 48 months the window closes and an updated return can no longer be filed at all — there is no later period to fall into. Waiting is the most expensive thing you can do with an ITR-U, and the cost is fixed by the calendar rather than by anything about your figures.
Questions
What is an updated return u/s 139(8A)?
How much extra does an ITR-U cost?
Can an updated return reduce my tax or increase my refund?
I want to update a return from more than two years ago.
Which ITR forms can be filed as an updated return?
Do you file the updated return for me?
Work out the return itself, not just the penalty
The additional tax is the easy part. What the liability becomes once the omitted income is back in it -- the recomputation, and the interest u/s 234A, 234B and 234C that comes with it -- is what preparing the return does. Nothing is payable until you download the JSON to file with.