Under the Income-tax Act, 2025, the income of a tax year is normally assessed after that tax year ends.…

Chapter XVII of the Income-tax Act, 2025 provides special cases in which tax is levied without waiting for the normal assessment after the tax year: shipping business of non-residents (section 316), persons leaving India (section 317), association of persons, body of individuals or artificial juridical person formed for a particular event or purpose (section 318), persons likely to transfer property to avoid tax (section 319) and discontinued business (section 320).

Under section 317 (formerly s.174 of the Income-tax Act, 1961), where it appears to the Assessing Officer that an individual may leave India during the current tax year or shortly after its expiry with no present intention of returning, his total income from the first day of that tax year up to the probable date of departure is chargeable to tax in that tax year itself. A salaried employee, a person carrying on an illegal business and a registered non-profit organisation are not among these special cases, so their income is assessed in the normal course.