The Income Tax Department on Monday allowed manual filing of form by resident and NRI taxpayers wanting to apply for deduction of taxes at a lower or nil rate on total income. The Income Tax Act provides that if a taxpayer considers his total income warrants deduction of income tax at lower/nil rate, he may apply to the assessing officer requesting for lower withholding certificate. Such application was to be e-filed by filling up Form 13.

To remove “genuine hardship” being faced by certain applicants in filing online application in Form 13, the tax department has allowed non-resident Indians to file manual application before the TDS officer or in ASK Centres till March 31, 2019, a financeNSE -0.07 % ministry statement said. Also, resident applicants can file manual application in Form 13 till December 31.