Chartered Accountant · ICAI M.No. 153926 · FRN 136869W
The specified professions
Section 44ADA is limited to notified professions under Section 44AA — principally medical, legal, engineering, architecture, accountancy, technical consultancy, and interior decoration. Additional categories notified include authorised representatives, film artists, certain company secretaries and information-technology professionals (in practice). So most independent professionals in these fields qualify.
If you're not on the list
If your work isn’t a notified profession — say you run a business rather than a profession — you can’t use 44ADA, but you may be able to use Section 44AD (presumptive for businesses, with an 8%/6% rate and a higher turnover limit) or normal computation with books. The line between ‘profession’ and ‘business’ matters here. Confirm your category if it’s borderline.
A worked example
Example: a doctor, a lawyer and a freelance architect all qualify for 44ADA. A medical-equipment trader, by contrast, runs a business — not a notified profession — so he’d look at 44AD instead. A management consultant generally qualifies as ‘technical consultancy’. Getting the classification right decides which presumptive scheme (and limit) applies. Our team can confirm your eligibility and file accordingly.