India Itr Efiling Registration

India e-filing portal registration (incometax.gov.in, Register as Taxpayer)

You are helping the user create their one-time account on the Income Tax Department's e-filing portal, incometax.gov.in. This is a free, no-document registration — it just needs an existing PAN — and is separate from getting the PAN itself and separate from filing an actual return. You drive the browser and fill the form from the user's answers; the user enters and verifies their own OTPs and sets their own password.

This registration is separate from, and often confused with:

• PAN application — a different, earlier step (a separate skill). A PAN must already exist and be allotted before this registration can start; PAN validation is literally the first field on this form.
• Filing the ITR itself — happens after registration and login, is a distinct multi-step process (choosing assessment year, ITR form, filling income/deduction details), and is not covered by this skill.
• GST or TAN registration — different portals, different purposes, unrelated to this account.

Read this first: what you must and must not do

• You are not a tax advisor. Don't advise on filing status, which ITR form to use later, or tax positions. This skill only gets the account created.
• Check first whether the PAN is already registered. If the portal reports the PAN is already registered, don't try to create a second account — that's not possible, and the fix is "Forgot Password" / "Forgot User ID" on the login page, not a fresh registration.
• Never type the user's Aadhaar-linked mobile/email OTP yourself in a way that bypasses their control — read it out to them or have them read it to you if needed, but the OTP has to originate from and be confirmed by the person who controls that mobile/email, since it's tied to their identity.
• Never set or guess the user's password. Let them type their own password and personalised message directly, or at minimum have them dictate the exact password they want rather than you choosing one.
• Verify, don't assume. Name, date of birth/incorporation, gender, and residential status must be entered exactly as on the PAN record — mismatches cause a validation error at this step, before any OTP is even sent.
• Don't click Refresh or Back mid-registration. The portal explicitly warns this can break the in-progress session; if something looks wrong, let it finish or restart from the beginning rather than navigating back.

Prerequisites

Full list in references/before-you-start.md. The essentials:

• A valid, already-allotted PAN (of the individual, or of the entity for non-individual registrations).
• Name, date of birth (individuals) or date of incorporation (entities), and residential status exactly as per the PAN record.
• A mobile number and email ID the applicant actually controls, for OTP verification — these become the registered contact details for portal communications.
• Current postal address.
• If PAN and Aadhaar are already linked, the portal may ask to validate details against UIDAI — the user should be ready to confirm that.

No documents are uploaded for this step — it's all typed fields plus OTP verification.

The flow

1. Go to the portal at incometax.gov.in and click "Register" (top-right on the homepage / pre-login area).
2. Select user type. "Taxpayer" for a normal individual/entity filer (the common case); "Others" is a different path (e.g. tax deductor/collector registering with a TAN, chartered accountant, external agency) — confirm which applies before proceeding, since it changes the whole rest of the form.
3. Enter and validate PAN. Type the PAN and click Validate. If the portal says it's already registered or invalid, stop — don't proceed to create a duplicate; see gotchas. If PAN and Aadhaar are linked, a confirmation checkbox may appear to allow validation against the UIDAI database — the user decides whether to confirm this.
4. Confirm registration type, if prompted (e.g. confirming "register as Individual Taxpayer").
5. Basic Details page. Enter name, date of birth/incorporation, gender (if applicable), and residential status — all exactly as they appear on the PAN record, since this is cross-checked against it.
6. Contact Details page. Enter primary mobile number, email ID, and current address.
7. OTP verification. Two separate 6-digit OTPs are sent — one to the mobile, one to the email — each valid for a limited window (commonly 15 minutes) with a small number of attempts. The user reads/enters these themselves.
8. Confirm details. A review screen shows everything entered; correct anything wrong here before proceeding, since it locks in once submitted.
9. Set Password page. The user chooses their own password (meeting the portal's complexity rules — typically upper+lowercase, digits, and a special character) and a personalised security message shown on future logins, then clicks Register themselves.
10. Confirmation. A success message appears; click "Proceed to Login" to hand back to the user for their first login, or stop here and let them log in later.

Gotchas

Detail in references/gotchas.md. The big ones:

• PAN already registered. The fix is "Forgot Password"/"Forgot User ID" on login, not a new registration — there's no way to register the same PAN twice.
• Name/DOB/status not matching the PAN record. Causes a validation failure at the Basic Details step; if this happens, the underlying PAN record — not this form — is what needs correcting (via a PAN correction request), which is outside this skill.
• Clicking Refresh or Back mid-flow. Can corrupt the in-progress session; restart cleanly rather than navigating backward.
• OTP expiry. OTPs are short-lived (commonly 15 minutes) with limited retry attempts — if the window lapses, use Resend rather than restarting the whole registration.
• Confusing this with PAN application or actual ITR filing. This step only creates the login; it neither issues a PAN nor files a return.

After registration

Registration itself doesn't file anything or cost anything. Tell the user they can now log in with their PAN as the user ID and the password they set, and from there access services like viewing Form 26AS/AIS, updating their profile, or (separately, not part of this skill) preparing and filing an ITR when they're ready. Remind them, without advising, that completing registration is not the same as having filed a return for any year — that's a distinct, later task.