Tax guide

AY 2026-27 Representative Filing Checklist for Deceased Taxpayers

Legal heirs and representatives can use death certificate, legal heir proof, and income records to organise registration, income records, refund bank details, and evidence before filing.

Written by MyeCA Editorial Team, Tax and Scheme Research Desk

Published 2026-05-27T00:00:00.000Z

A representative filing requires authority to act as well as a complete income-tax record for the deceased person. Registration, income, bank, refund, and filing-period facts should remain traceable to the correct taxpayer.

Connect the death certificate and legal-heir or representative record with the deceased taxpayer's PAN, income records, tax credits, and refund bank details before beginning the return.

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Separate authority to file from the deceased taxpayer's return

Create two connected files. The authority file should contain the death record, representative or legal-heir basis, portal registration status, and communication that permits action. The tax file should contain the deceased taxpayer's PAN, income by period, deductions, tax credits, bank or refund details, prior returns, and any outstanding proceeding. Authority to access the portal does not prove the income figures, and possession of income records does not by itself establish authority to file.

Build a dated chronology around the death and relevant filing period. Identify income and transactions before and after that date, accounts that remain in the deceased person's name, and records controlled by an employer, bank, broker, or another family member. Keep competing claims, inaccessible accounts, foreign assets, and disputed refund-bank ownership visible. Preserve every portal response and submitted acknowledgement so later estate or assessment questions can be answered from the exact return and authority record used. <!-- ay-route-specific-depth:end -->

Keep authority to act separate from the deceased person's tax facts

Build two connected records. The authority record should contain the death document, representative or legal-heir basis, portal status, and correspondence that permits action. The tax record should contain the deceased taxpayer's PAN, income, deductions, tax credits, prior returns, bank details, and outstanding proceedings. Access to an account does not prove authority to file, and recognised authority does not make an incomplete income record reliable.

Prepare a dated chronology around the death and the filing period. Identify which income and transactions belong to the deceased person, which occurred later, and which accounts remain in that person's name. Confirm that any refund bank detail is supportable and not selected merely because a representative controls it. Keep portal responses and submitted acknowledgements because status and access can change during follow-up. Pause for competing representatives, inaccessible broker or bank records, foreign assets, disputed refund ownership, or material income whose timing around the date of death cannot be established. Those issues should remain explicit rather than being resolved through assumptions made only to complete the portal filing.

  • Death certificate: For representative filing deceased taxpayer, check that death certificate belongs to the correct taxpayer, period, issuer, and claim. Compare its amount and validity details with legal heir proof, and preserve any corrected certificate used for filing.
  • Legal heir proof: Use legal heir proof for the person, period, amount, or filing fact it directly establishes for the evidence review. Compare that fact with income records, and keep any unresolved difference visible in the working before deciding how to organise registration, income records, refund bank details, and evidence before filing.
  • Income records: Use income records for the person, period, amount, or filing fact it directly establishes for the return working. Compare that fact with correction trail and filing acknowledgement, and keep any unresolved difference visible in the working before deciding how to organise registration, income records, refund bank details, and evidence before filing.

Escalate competing representatives, inaccessible accounts, incomplete income records, disputed refund-bank ownership, foreign assets, or a portal status that does not recognise the representative.

Before submitting, organise registration, income records, refund bank details, and evidence before filing. Record what income records establish, explain any remaining difference, and retain the correction trail and filing acknowledgement with the final computation.

Official references