Income tax department sends SMS, emails to taxpayers over wrongful donation claims

“A targeted NUDGE campaign has been launched as a taxpayer-friendly measure, providing them opportunity to update their ITRs and withdraw wrong claims, if any. SMSs and Email advisories are being issued from 12th December 2025 to such taxpayers on their registered mobile numbers and emails,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

The CBDT noted that evidence collected through enforcement actions suggests that several RUPPs, many of which were non-filers, non-operational at their registered addresses, and not engaged in legitimate political activity, were being misused as conduits for routing funds, hawala transactions, cross-border remittances, and issuing bogus donation receipts.

Follow-up searches conducted on some of these RUPPs and trusts uncovered incriminating evidence related to false individual donations and fraudulent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) claims by companies.

Further analysis indicated that a number of taxpayers claimed deductions for donations made to suspicious entities or failed to provide adequate information to establish their authenticity.

The department highlighted that many taxpayers have already responded by revising their Income Tax Returns for the current assessment year 2025–26 and filing updated returns for previous years.

“Every taxpayer is advised to ensure that correct mobile and email IDs are mentioned in their filings with the Department so that they do not miss out on any communication,” the CBDT said.