Deductions to be Provided for Disabled Persons

The taxation authority has reduced the burden of taxation on the assesses who is a resident individual who, at any time during the previous year, is certified by the medical authority to be a person with disability.

Specified conditions: To avail deduction under this section, the assessee shall have to furnish a copy of the certificate issued by the medical authority along with the return of income. Where the condition of disability requires reassessment, the assessee shall have to furnish a copy of the fresh certificate obtained from the medical authority after the expiry of the period mentioned in the original certificate.

Amount of deduction: A fixed deduction of Rs. 50,000 shall be allowed. However, such individual is a person with severe disability the amount of deduction shall be Rs. 1, 00,000.

Person with disability—Meaning of : It means a person suffering from not less than 40% of any disability given below :

• Blindness : it refers to a condition where a person surfers from any of the following conditions :

1. Total absence of sight ; or
2. Visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 in the better eye with correcting lenses ; or
3. Limitation of the field of vision subtending an angle of 20 degree or worse

• Low vision : ‘A person with low vision’  means a person with impartment of visual functioning even after treatment or standard refractive correction but who uses or is potential capable of using vision for the planning of execution of a task appropriate assistive device.

• Leprosy-cured : ‘Leprosy cured person’ means any person who has been cured of leprosy but is suffering from :

1. Loss of sensation of hands or feet as well as lose of sensation and paresis in the eye and eye-lid but with no manifest deformity ;
2. Manifest deformity and paresis but having sufficient mobility in their hands and feet to enable them to engage in normal economic activity ;
3. Extreme physical deformity as well as advanced age which prevents him from undertaking any gainful occupation.
4. Hearing impairment: ‘Hearing impairment’ means loss of sixty decibels more in the better year in the conservational range of frequencies.
5. Locomotor disability: ‘Locomotor disability’ means disability of the bones, joints or muscles leading to substantial restriction of the movement of the limbs or any form of cerebral palsy.
6. Mental retardation: ‘Mental retardation’ means a condition of arrested or incomplete development of mind of a person, which is specially characterized by subnormality of intelligence.
7. Mental illness: ‘Mental illness’ means nay mental disorder other than mental retardation.
8. Autism, cerebral palsy and multiple disability: autism, cerebral palsy and multiple disability have been included in the expression ‘person with disability’ from the assessment year 2005-06.

• ‘Person with disability’
• ‘Person with severe disability’
• ‘Medical authority’—Meaning of : ‘Medical authority’, means any hospital or institution specified by notification by the appropriate Government for the purpose of the persons with Disabilities Act 1995 or such medical authority as specified by Central Government for certifying ‘autism’, ‘cerebral palsy’, ‘multiple disabilities’, ‘person with disability’ and ‘severe disability’.

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