Editorial Board & Standards

FnOTax India is an independent publication focused on the income-tax treatment of futures and options trading for Indian retail traders. We do not file returns or perform statutory audits ourselves. Where the law requires a Chartered Accountant — for example, signing Form 26 (Tax Audit Report under Section 63 of the Income-tax Act 2025) — we say so plainly and refer readers to a qualified professional.

The Editorial Board is the entity responsible for source verification, dual-citation framing, and statutory accuracy of every page on this site that carries the Source verified badge. The Board operates independently of any product, brokerage or filing-service commercial relationship.

• F&O turnover calculation under the ICAI Guidance Note on Tax Audit, including the GN 2025 option-premium update and earlier guidance for prior assessment years.
• Tax audit applicability under Section 44AB of the Income-tax Act 1961 and successor Section 63 of the Income-tax Act 2025.
• Presumptive taxation under Section 44AD / 44ADA / 44AE and successor Section 58.
• Loss set-off and carry-forward under Sections 70, 71, 72, 73, 73A and 74 of the 1961 Act and successor Sections 109-114 of the 2025 Act.
• ITR-3 filing for retail F&O traders, including the AIS / Form 26AS reconciliation workflow.
• Reassessment and intimation notices under Sections 143(1), 148, 148A and 148AB.

1. Primary statutory text first. Every claim is traced to the verbatim text of the relevant section in the Income-tax Act 1961 (consolidated PDF on India Code) and the Income-tax Act 2025 (eGazette PDF, Act No. 30 of 2025, assented 21 August 2025). We use the CBDT Section Navigator to confirm 1961-↔-2025 section mapping.
2. Rules and forms second. Procedural claims are checked against the Income-tax Rules 1962 and the Income-tax (No. 2) Rules 2026 (CBDT Notification 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026, in force from 1 April 2026).
3. CBDT clarifications third. Due-date, threshold and interpretation claims are cross-checked with the latest CBDT circulars (notably Circular 6/2025 and Circular 15/2025) and the CBDT FAQ on Interplay & Transitions for the Income-tax Act 2025.
4. ICAI professional guidance fourth. Turnover formulae and tax-audit procedural items are checked against the ICAI Guidance Note on Tax Audit. For AY 2026-27 onward, we apply the GN 2025 option-premium treatment and preserve older guidance only for prior-year context.
5. e-Filing portal evidence last. Where a claim depends on what the e-Filing portal actually does (form fields, validation rules, JSON schemas), we cite the relevant download or help page on incometax.gov.in.

Every Source verified article carries:

• 5-7 inline citations to gov.in sources in the body.
• An additional 2-3 sources in the Primary Sources strip at the top of the page.
• A dual-citation callout naming both the 1961 Act section and its 2025 Act successor, with the relevant assessment-year cut-over.
• The full citation list in JSON-LD Article.citation so structured-data consumers and AI assistants can verify our claims independently.

The Income-tax Act 1961 stands repealed from 1 April 2026 by Section 536 of the Income-tax Act 2025. The 2025 Act commences on the same date (per its Section 1(3)). This means:

• AY 2025-26 returns (FY 2024-25 income) are governed by the 1961 Act.
• AY 2026-27 returns onwards (FY 2025-26 income and later) are governed by the 2025 Act.
• Every article that touches a statutory section names both the 1961 section and the 2025 successor, with a "what changes" callout where the substance moved (most notably Section 271B → Section 428(c), where the old penalty became a fee).

Articles carrying the Source verified badge are reviewed by the Editorial Board against the pinned sources above. Where an article has additionally been reviewed by a named Chartered Accountant with a verifiable ICAI Member Registration Number, the article's byline names the reviewer and links to their ICAI profile via the Person.hasCredential field in JSON-LD.

We do not falsely attribute reviews to individuals who have not reviewed an article. If a CA review has not happened, the article carries the Source verified badge only — never CA reviewed.

If you find a factual or statutory error on any page, write to editorial@fnotax.com with the URL, the disputed claim, and your source. We commit to:

• Acknowledging the report within 3 working days.
• Publishing a corrected version within 10 working days of confirming the error.
• Adding a Corrected on note at the bottom of the article describing what changed and why, and bumping dateModified in the article's JSON-LD.
• Where the correction materially changes a reader's tax position, leaving the prior version archived under a stable URL so prior advice can be inspected.

FnOTax India is not paid by brokerages, filing services, or product vendors for editorial coverage. We do not accept guest posts. Where we link to a third-party broker, calculator or filing service, it is because we use the same primary source data — not because of any commercial arrangement.

Comparisons against other publications (ClearTax, Quicko, TaxBuddy) cite their public-facing content and explain, with source citations, where we differ. We update those pages as the competitors update their content.

• We do not give personalised tax advice. Our content is educational guidance grounded in primary sources.
• We do not file returns. ITR-3 filing remains the taxpayer's (or their CA's) statutory responsibility.
• We do not perform statutory audits. Form 26 / Form 3CA-3CD must be signed by a CA in practice.
• We do not represent taxpayers before the income-tax department.