Got a High-Value Transaction SMS from Income Tax? — citizen guide 2026

If the Income Tax Department texts you about a high value transaction, log in at incometax.gov.in, open Pending Actions, Compliance Portal, then e-Campaign, and submit feedback on each flagged entry. Do this before you file or revise your return for that year.

Short on time? Skip to the step-by-step response below. First, confirm the message is real, because scammers copy this exact theme.

The Department does send these alerts. But fake “tax refund” and “high value transaction” texts also circulate, and they try to steal your OTP, PAN, or bank login. So verify before you click anything.

Three checks settle it:

1. Never click a link in the SMS. Open a fresh browser and type incometax.gov.in yourself. A genuine e-Campaign always lives inside your logged-in account, never on a random link.
2. Check the sender of any email. Real Income Tax email comes from an address ending in incometax.gov.in, for example [email protected]. Anything else is suspect.
3. Authenticate a notice by its DIN. Every formal communication issued on or after 1 October 2019 must carry a 20-digit Document Identification Number, DIN. Use the “Authenticate Notice/Order Issued by ITD” service on the portal. If a notice has no DIN, it is treated as never issued, so you can ignore it.

A genuine e-Campaign nudge is not a penalty and not a scrutiny notice. It is an early, voluntary chance to fix a mismatch before the Department escalates.

Banks, sub-registrars, mutual funds, and companies report your big transactions to the tax department every year. They file a Statement of Financial Transactions, SFT, in Form 61A. This feeds your Annual Information Statement, AIS, the Department's full view of your financial year.

The e-Campaign fires when something in your AIS does not match the income or transactions in your Income Tax Return, ITR. Common triggers are a large fixed deposit, a property purchase registered with the sub-registrar, a heavy credit-card spend, or a chunky mutual-fund or share purchase.

The Statement of Financial Transactions obligation sits with the reporting entity, not you. It has long been codified at Section 285BA of the Income-tax Act read with Rule 114E of the Income-tax Rules, and these reporting rules carried into the new Income-tax Act, 2025, which took effect from 1 April 2026. The penalty for not filing the SFT, under Section 271FA, falls on the bank or registrar, not on the citizen. Your job is only to respond to the campaign.

Go to incometax.gov.in and log in with your PAN or Aadhaar and password. Do not use a link from the SMS. Type the address yourself.

On your dashboard, click Pending Actions, then Compliance Portal. A new tab opens at the Insight Compliance Portal. From there pick e-Campaign.

The e-Campaign page shows active campaigns under headings like Significant Transactions, High Value Transactions, and Non-Filing of Return. Open the one that matches your SMS and read the list of flagged entries.

Click Provide Feedback in AIS against an entry. For each item, choose one response option. The standard options are:

1. Information is correct , the entry is right and belongs to you.
2. Information is not fully correct , partly right; you then enter the corrected value.
3. Information relates to other PAN/year , it belongs to someone else or a different year.
4. Information is duplicate / included in other information , the same transaction is counted twice.
5. Information is denied , the transaction is not yours at all.

For income-type entries you may also see Income is not taxable. Pick the one true option per entry. You can submit feedback for several entries together.

Submit your feedback. A success message confirms that your Taxpayer Information Summary, TIS, will update with the revised value. Download the acknowledgement from your activity history and keep it.

If the flagged income was genuinely yours and missing from your ITR, file or revise your return for that assessment year. Responding in the portal does not by itself correct unpaid tax.

1. PAN and registered mobile number linked to the portal.
2. The SMS or email reference, and the DIN if a notice was issued.
3. Bank statements, FD receipts, the sale deed, or broker and mutual-fund statements for the flagged transaction.
4. Your filed ITR and Form 26AS for that year, to compare against the AIS entry.

1. Clicking the link in the SMS. Genuine e-Campaigns never need an external link. A link that asks for OTP or card details is a scam.
2. Ignoring the message. Silence does not close the file. An unresolved mismatch can move you from a soft e-Campaign nudge to e-Verification, and then to a formal scrutiny or reassessment notice.
3. Marking everything “correct” to make it disappear. If the entry is wrong, say so with the right option, or you may end up paying tax you do not owe.
4. Forgetting to revise the ITR. Portal feedback updates your TIS, but undeclared income still needs a corrected return.
5. Confusing this with a refund SMS. The Department never asks for your bank password or OTP to “release a refund.” Verify only on incometax.gov.in.

Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak, a salaried doctor in Patna, got an SMS in 2026 about a high value transaction. His AIS showed a Rs 12,00,000 fixed deposit flagged under SFT, but his ITR did not reflect the interest.

He did not click the text. He typed incometax.gov.in, logged in, and opened Pending Actions, Compliance Portal, e-Campaign. The entry was genuine, the FD was his. He marked it Information is correct, saw that the interest of about Rs 78,000 was missing from his return, and filed a revised ITR paying the small balance tax. He downloaded the acknowledgement. The campaign closed with no notice. Total time, under an hour, cost only the extra tax and a token interest.

It is a large financial transaction reported to the tax department by a bank, registrar, mutual fund, or company through the Statement of Financial Transactions, SFT, in Form 61A. Examples include big fixed deposits, property purchases, heavy credit-card spends, and large share or mutual-fund buys. It appears in your Annual Information Statement, AIS.

Do not trust the SMS itself. Open incometax.gov.in directly and log in. A real e-Campaign sits inside your account under Pending Actions, Compliance Portal. For any formal notice, authenticate the 20-digit DIN using the “Authenticate Notice/Order Issued by ITD” service. Official email ends in incometax.gov.in.

You reach it from the e-Filing portal. After login, click Pending Actions, then Compliance Portal. It opens the Insight Compliance Portal in a new tab, where you select e-Campaign, e-Verification, or DIN Authentication.

The standard options are: Information is correct; Information is not fully correct; Information relates to other PAN/year; Information is duplicate or included in other information; and Information is denied. Income-type entries may also offer Income is not taxable. Choose one true option per entry.

The e-Campaign itself is a voluntary nudge, not a penalty order. But ignoring a genuine mismatch invites escalation, first e-Verification, then a formal scrutiny or reassessment notice. The Section 271FA penalty for not filing the SFT applies to the reporting bank or registrar, not to you.

There is no separate fixed clock advertised for the nudge, so respond as early as you can. Practically, act before you file or revise your ITR for that assessment year, and before the campaign closes or a formal notice issues. The sooner you clear a mismatch, the lower the scrutiny risk.

Open the entry and mark it Information is denied, or Information relates to other PAN/year if it belongs to someone else. Enter any supporting detail and submit. Keep the acknowledgement. If a wrong entry persists, it can also be raised with the reporting entity that filed the SFT.

No. Portal feedback updates your Taxpayer Information Summary, TIS. If real income was left out of your ITR, you must still file or revise the return and pay any balance tax. Feedback alone does not settle the liability.

1. Do not click any link in the SMS. Open incometax.gov.in in a fresh browser tab.
2. Log in and go to Pending Actions, Compliance Portal, e-Campaign.
3. Read every flagged entry and gather the matching bank, FD, deed, or broker statement.
4. Submit one true feedback option per entry and download the acknowledgement.
5. If income was missing, plan to file or revise your ITR for that year.
6. If a formal notice arrived, authenticate its DIN before doing anything else.

1. Income Tax Department, “View and Submit Compliance” user manual, Compliance Portal and e-Campaign access path: https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/help/view-and-submit-compliance
2. Income Tax Department, FAQs on Annual Information Statement, AIS: https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/ais-faq
3. Income Tax Department, “Authenticate the Notice issued by ITD” user manual, DIN authentication: https://www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/help/how-to-authenticate-notice
4. Statement of Financial Transactions, Form 61A, under Section 285BA read with Rule 114E of the Income-tax Rules, reporting entities and 31 May due date; obligation carried into the Income-tax Act, 2025 from 1 April 2026.

1. Worried it will escalate? See how to read and reply to an income tax notice.
2. Need to file or revise? See how to file your ITR online in 2026.
3. Draft a clean follow-up with the AI RTI drafting tool.
4. For escalation discipline when an office stays silent, read The RTI Playbook.