Section 80U – Income Tax Deduction
Section 80U – Income Tax Deduction
The Government Of India wished to introduce a facility in the Income Tax Act to provide a concession in tax liability to disabled persons. Hence, Section 80U was introduced in the Act. The section provides a maximum deduction of Rs. 75000 for a person with moderate disability. On the other hand, if the assessee suffers from severe disability, the section allows a deduction of Rs. 125000.
Amount of Deduction under Section 80U
For deduction under section 80U, individuals or persons with disability are categorized into two types:
Person with Disability
A person with a disability means the person suffers from 40% disability. If a person has at least forty per cent disability, then the assessee is eligible for a deduction of seventy-five thousand rupees.
Person with Severe Disability
A person with a severe disability means a person who suffers from at least eighty per cent disability. Such a person is eligible for a deduction of one lakh and twenty-five thousand rupees.
Disability under Section 80U
Disabilities are defined in The Persons with Disability (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995. Persons suffering from any of the following kinds of disabilities, as certified by a medical authority, qualify for a tax deduction as per Section 80U. The following disabilities are eligible to claim a deduction under the Act:
- Blindness: “Blindness” refers to a condition where a person suffers from any of the following conditions, namely:- (i) Total absence of sight or (ii) Visual acuity not exceeding 6160 or 201200 (Snellen) in the better eye with correcting lenses or (iii) Limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degrees or worse.
- Low vision: “Person with low vision” means a person with impairment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction who uses or is potentially capable of using vision to plan or execute a task with an appropriate assistive device.
- Leprosy-cured: “Leprosy-cured person” means any person who has been cured of leprosy but is suffering from (i) Loss of sensation in hands or feet as well as loss of sensation and paresis in the eye and eyelid but with no manifest deformity; (ii) Manifest deformity and paresis; but having sufficient mobility in their hands and feet to enable them to engage in normal economic activity; (iii) Extreme physical deformity as well as advanced age which prevents him from undertaking any gainful occupation, and the expression “leprosy cured” shall be construed accordingly.
- Hearing impairment: “Hearing impairment” means loss of sixty decibels or more in the better year in the conversational range of frequencies.
- Locomotor disability: “Locomotor disability” means disability of the bones, joints, and muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy.
- Mental retardation: “Mental illness” means any mental disorder other than mental retardation.
- Mental illness: “Mental retardation” means a condition of arrested or incomplete development of the mind of a person, which is specially characterized by the sub-normality of intelligence.
- Cerebral palsy: “Cerebral palsy” means a group of non-progressive conditions of a person characterized by abnormal motor control posture resulting from brain insult or injuries occurring in the pre-natal, perinatal or infant development period.
Eligibility
Tax benefits can be availed by any resident individual certified as a differently-abled person with any of the above disabilities by the competent medical authority. The following kinds of medical authorities are competent to certify a person to be disabled:
- A Civil Surgeon or Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of a government hospital.
- A Neurologist with an MD qualification in Neurology
- In the case of children, a Paediatric Neurologist having a degree equivalent to MD
Medical Certificate for Claiming Section 80DD & Section 80U Deduction
Taxpayers claiming Section 80DD deduction should file a copy of the medical certificate issued by the medical authority. In case of a person with a disability or severe disability due to autism, cerebral palsy or multiple disabilities, a certificate issued by the medical authority in Form No. 10 – IA should be submitted. The medical certificate for claiming deduction under Section 80DD can be issued by a neurologist with a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree in Neurology or a Pediatric Neurologist with a similar degree for children or a Civil Surgeon or a Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of any government hospital.
For temporary disability, the certificate will be valid for the period starting from the assessment year to the previous year during which the certificate was issued and ending with the assessment year relevant to the previous year during which the certificate’s validity expires.
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