
All these while, we have been producing face rent receipts in order to claim the House Rent Allowance (HRA). Such fake rent receipts would either have the signature from our parents, friends or relatives in order to reduce our tax burden. Even if a person is a genuine tenant, the amount mentioned in the HRA would be more than what is actually been paid as rent.
But recently, according to the ITAT (Income Tax Appellate Tribunal), going forward such claims can be rejected. The assessing officer who is responsible for considering the claim may demand more proof for the tenancy. The proofs that may be required to be submitted would be the leave and license agreement, letter to the housing cooperative society informing the tenancy, transactions of payments for the electricity bill and water bill, etc. It is definitely understandable that the proofs demanded the Income Tax department would not be available with people who produce fake rent receipts.
Though there is still no clarity of how such fake rent receipts would be filtered from so many IT filings and later demand these rent proofs from them. But the ITAT team specifies that the technology could help them in identifying such fake rent receipts. A very simple method identifies them is to cross verify whether the address mentioned in the rent receipt and the address mentioned in the IT returns form is the same.