How TaxBuddy Resolves Cross-Year Tax Conflicts Through a Scheduled Call Review
- Rashmita Choudhary
- 19 hours ago
- 8 min read
Cross-year tax conflicts are one of the most common reasons taxpayers face refund delays, demands, or repeated notices from the Income Tax Department. Issues such as TDS mismatches across assessment years, refund adjustments under Section 245, or inconsistencies between Form 26AS and AIS often go unnoticed until a notice is issued. TaxBuddy addresses these challenges through a structured, scheduled call review, where tax experts examine historical data, identify discrepancies across years, and guide corrective action in line with the Income Tax Act, 1961. This approach ensures compliance while preventing penalties, appeals, or prolonged disputes.
Table of Contents
What Are Cross-Year Tax Conflicts and Why Do They Occur
Cross-year tax conflicts arise when income, tax credits, or liabilities reported in one financial year do not align with records reflected in subsequent assessment years. These issues usually surface when historical data remains unreconciled on the Income Tax portal and later impacts refunds, tax calculations, or compliance status. Common triggers include delayed TDS reporting by deductors, income reported in a different year than when tax was deducted, or corrections made by employers or banks after return filing. Over time, these mismatches accumulate and create demands or refund blocks that taxpayers often notice only after receiving a notice.
Common Cross-Year Tax Conflicts Faced by Taxpayers
Taxpayers frequently encounter mismatches in TDS credits where tax deducted in one year reflects in Form 26AS or AIS of another year. Refund adjustments under Section 245 are another major issue, where a current-year refund is adjusted against an old demand that was never properly communicated or resolved. AIS and Form 26AS discrepancies may also show income such as bank interest, dividends, or foreign assets linked to earlier years. Salaried individuals with multiple employers or job switches often face consolidated income mismatches spanning more than one assessment year.
How TaxBuddy Identifies Cross-Year Tax Conflicts
TaxBuddy identifies cross-year conflicts by reviewing PAN-linked historical data across assessment years rather than limiting analysis to the current filing year. The platform examines Form 26AS, AIS, past ITR filings, refund histories, and outstanding demand records together. This holistic review helps detect inconsistencies that automated filing tools often miss, such as duplicated income, missing TDS credits, or unresolved adjustments carried forward from previous years.
Scheduled Call Review Process at TaxBuddy
The scheduled call review process allows taxpayers to discuss complex, multi-year tax issues directly with a qualified tax expert. During the call, historical records across assessment years are examined, including TDS certificates, AIS entries, refund adjustments, and notice histories. The expert explains the root cause of the conflict and outlines the exact steps required, such as filing a rectification request, submitting a response to a notice, or revising a return. This approach ensures clarity and avoids incorrect self-corrections that may worsen the issue.
Role of Scheduled Call Reviews in Preventing Notices and Penalties
Scheduled call reviews play a preventive role by resolving discrepancies before they escalate into formal notices or penalty proceedings. Early identification of cross-year issues allows timely rectification within statutory deadlines. This reduces the risk of interest under Sections 234A, 234B, or 234C, avoids unnecessary appeals, and prevents repeated refund adjustments. Addressing issues proactively also ensures that future returns are filed on clean historical data.
Is Cross-Year Tax Rectification Allowed in the New Tax Regime?
Cross-year rectification is allowed under the new tax regime, provided the correction does not involve claiming deductions or exemptions that are not permitted under the regime. Rectification typically applies to factual errors such as incorrect income reporting, missing TDS credits, or computational mismatches. The availability of rectification is independent of the chosen tax regime, but the nature of the correction must comply with regime-specific rules.
How Cross-Year Rectification Works in the Old Tax Regime
Under the old tax regime, rectification can include correcting income details, TDS credits, and eligible deductions if they were omitted or incorrectly reported earlier. Taxpayers may also revise earlier filings to reflect accurate claims supported by documentation. Scheduled expert reviews help ensure that corrections remain compliant and do not trigger further scrutiny due to inconsistent reporting.
Benefits of Scheduled Call Reviews for Individuals and Businesses
Scheduled call reviews provide practical and long-term benefits for both individual taxpayers and businesses by addressing tax issues at their root rather than treating them as isolated, year-specific problems.
For individuals, scheduled reviews help bring clarity to salary-related mismatches, delayed TDS credits, and bank interest reporting errors that often span more than one assessment year. Situations such as job changes, multiple employers, late Form 16 corrections, or interest reported by banks after return filing frequently create inconsistencies in Form 26AS or AIS. A structured expert review eliminates guesswork by identifying the exact year in which the mismatch originated and recommending the correct corrective action, whether through rectification, revised returns, or notice responses. This approach prevents repeated refund adjustments, reduces stress caused by unexpected demands, and avoids unnecessary re-filing attempts that can worsen the issue.
For businesses, scheduled call reviews play a critical role in managing historical compliance risks. Businesses often deal with complex TDS obligations, turnover reporting differences, and income reconciliation challenges linked to earlier financial years. Mismatches between GST returns and income tax filings, delayed TDS filings by clients, or corrections in previous assessments can trigger cross-year inconsistencies that surface much later. Expert-led reviews help businesses reconcile these records accurately, align income and tax credits across years, and address legacy issues before they attract scrutiny or audits. This ensures continuity in compliance and prevents small historical errors from escalating into significant financial or legal exposure.
Overall, the structured review process saves considerable time by replacing trial-and-error corrections with clear, compliant guidance. It reduces the risk of penalties, interest, and prolonged correspondence with tax authorities by ensuring that each corrective step is supported by documentation and aligned with statutory rules. By resolving historical discrepancies in a systematic manner, scheduled call reviews also create a clean foundation for future filings, allowing individuals and businesses to file returns confidently without the burden of unresolved past issues.
How TaxBuddy Integrates Scheduled Reviews With Its Filing Platform
TaxBuddy integrates scheduled call reviews as a core layer within its tax filing platform rather than treating them as a separate support feature. When a scheduled review is booked, the system links the call to the taxpayer’s PAN-based profile, enabling experts to securely access historical filings, Form 26AS, AIS data, refund records, and any outstanding demands across assessment years. This unified view ensures that discussions during the call are based on verified portal data instead of assumptions or partial information.
During the scheduled call, the expert reviews discrepancies in real time while referencing the same datasets that drive the filing workflow. If issues such as cross-year TDS mismatches, refund adjustments, or income reporting inconsistencies are identified, the corrective steps are mapped directly into the platform. This may include initiating a rectification request, preparing a revised return, or drafting a response to an income tax notice within the system itself.
Once the call concludes, the recommended actions are not left as manual instructions for the taxpayer to interpret. Instead, they are structured into the filing process, with clear prompts, document requirements, and validation checks. This reduces the risk of incorrect implementation, missed fields, or incomplete submissions, which are common when taxpayers attempt to apply expert advice independently.
The integration also ensures continuity between current and future filings. Corrected data is carried forward accurately, preventing the same cross-year conflict from resurfacing in later assessment years. By combining expert review with an automated, guided filing workflow, TaxBuddy creates a closed-loop system where identification, correction, and compliance happen within a single platform, resulting in faster resolution and lower chances of repeat issues.
Conclusion
Cross-year tax conflicts often remain hidden until they disrupt refunds or trigger notices. A structured review of historical records, combined with expert guidance, ensures accurate resolution without penalties or prolonged disputes. For anyone looking for assistance in resolving tax conflicts or filing returns accurately, it is highly recommended to download the TaxBuddy mobile app for a simplified, secure, and hassle-free experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is a cross-year tax conflict in income tax filing?
A cross-year tax conflict occurs when income, TDS credits, refunds, or tax demands related to one financial year impact another assessment year. This usually happens due to delayed TDS reporting, refund adjustments against old demands, AIS updates after filing, or corrections made by employers or banks in later years.
Q. How do cross-year tax conflicts usually come to light?
Most taxpayers become aware of cross-year conflicts when a refund is adjusted under Section 245, a notice is issued for a mismatch in AIS or Form 26AS, or an outstanding demand appears while filing a return for a later year. In many cases, the issue originates several years earlier.
Q. Can unresolved cross-year issues block current-year refunds?
Yes. If the Income Tax Department identifies an outstanding demand or mismatch from a previous year, the current-year refund can be withheld or adjusted until the issue is resolved. This is one of the most common consequences of unresolved cross-year conflicts.
Q. Are TDS mismatches from earlier years still correctable?
TDS mismatches from earlier years can usually be corrected through rectification requests or revised returns, depending on the nature of the error. Even if the mismatch is old, it should be addressed to prevent repeated refund adjustments or future notices.
Q. How does TaxBuddy handle cross-year tax conflicts differently from automated tools?
TaxBuddy reviews PAN-linked tax data across multiple assessment years instead of focusing only on the current return. Through scheduled expert call reviews, historical filings, Form 26AS, AIS data, and refund histories are analysed together to identify the root cause and ensure correct resolution.
Q. What happens during a scheduled call review for cross-year issues?
During the scheduled call, a tax expert reviews historical tax records, explains why the conflict occurred, and outlines the exact steps needed to resolve it. This may include filing a rectification request, responding to a notice, revising a return, or submitting supporting documentation within statutory timelines.
Q. Is revising an old return always required to fix cross-year conflicts?
No. Some cross-year issues can be resolved through rectification or online responses without revising the original return. The correct approach depends on whether the error is factual, computational, or due to missing information reported later.
Q. Are cross-year rectifications allowed under the new tax regime?
Yes. Cross-year rectifications are allowed under the new tax regime for factual and computational errors, such as missing TDS credits or income mismatches. However, deductions or exemptions not permitted under the new regime cannot be added during rectification.
Q. Do salaried employees face cross-year conflicts more often?
Salaried employees often face cross-year issues due to job changes, multiple employers, delayed Form 16 issuance, or employer corrections made after return filing. These situations frequently result in TDS or income mismatches across assessment years.
Q. Can businesses also face cross-year tax conflicts?
Yes. Businesses may face cross-year conflicts due to delayed TDS compliance, mismatches in reported turnover, or differences between GST-linked income and income tax records. Addressing these early helps prevent scrutiny and future compliance issues.
Q. Do cross-year conflicts automatically result in penalties or interest?
Penalties are not automatic. However, if a discrepancy remains unresolved after notice issuance or leads to underreported income, interest or penalties may apply. Timely resolution through expert review significantly reduces this risk.
Q. Can cross-year tax issues be fully managed through a mobile app?
Yes. A well-integrated tax platform allows users to upload documents, schedule expert calls, track resolution steps, and implement corrections directly within the filing workflow, making the entire process manageable through a mobile app.
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