What is Section 80-QQB

Updated on : Aug. 27, 2022 - 5 p.m. 17 min read.

Section 80QQB of the income tax is a facility introduced in the Income Tax Act for providing a tax incentive to Indian authors. The section permits taxpayers to claim tax deductions on royalty earned from the sale of books. Only Indian resident authors are eligible to claim a deduction under Section 80QQB. For claiming a deduction under the section, a maximum limit of Rs.3 lakhs is applicable. Royalty in literary, artistic, and scientific books is eligible for a tax deduction. However, royalties from textbooks, journals, and diaries do not qualify for any tax deduction. In case an author is obtaining royalties from abroad, the royalty should be brought into the country within a specified time period in order to avail of tax benefits.

Eligibility criteria:

Section 80QQB tax deduction can be availed by authors in India earning royalty income. To claim deduction under Section 80QQB, the following two conditions must be satisfied:

The taxpayer should be an individual who is a resident of India.
The taxpayer should be an author or joint author of a book that is a work of literary, artistic, or scientific nature.

Amount of deduction:

Under section 80QQB, authors can avail of income tax deductions of up to Rs.3 lakhs or up to the amount of royalty income received, whichever is lower.

Conditions to avail of a deduction:

● To avail of section 80QQB deduction, the taxpayer must be an individual resident or resident but not ordinarily resident in India. However, the assessee may be an Indian citizen or a foreign citizen. The taxpayer must have authored or co-authored a book that falls under the category of literary, artistic, or scientific work.

● Authors of books would not include brochures, commentaries, diaries, guides, journals, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, textbooks for school, and other similar publications.

● The taxpayer must file an income tax return to claim the deduction and obtain Form 10CCD from the person/entity making the royalty payment. Form 10CCD need not be attached to the income tax return. However, it must be maintained along with the books of accounts maintained by the assessee and produced if requested by an Assessing Officer along with the tax-audit report.

● If the income of the author is not a lump sum payment, then 15% of the value of books sold in the year (before allowing any expenses) should be ignored. Additionally, if the income is earned outside India, the deduction is allowed on income when it is brought to India within 6 months from the end of the year or within the period defined by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Form 10- CCD:

Form 10CCD format must be obtained by the taxpayer for availing deduction under section 80QQB. Form 10CCD needs to be completed and signed by the person or entity making the royalty payment to the taxpayer. The following Form 10CCD format can be used for claiming deduction under this section.

By Kratika Muramkar

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