Section 94 - Amounts not deductible
Personal expenditure and listed TDS-default payments are barred; lottery and gambling income generally receives no expense deduction, with the horse-owner exception stated in the section.
Reviewed by CA Nikhil Gupta · Updated 9 October 2026
Section 94 is presented using the consolidated Income-tax Act, 2025 as amended by the Finance Act, 2026. The general commencement date is 1 April 2026. Earlier years and saved proceedings may remain governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961 and the repeal/savings framework.
2-minute professional decode
Personal expenditure and listed TDS-default payments are barred; lottery and gambling income generally receives no expense deduction, with the horse-owner exception stated in the section.
Who should test this section?
Section 94 should be reviewed when a receipt may fall within amounts not deductible; taxpayers and advisers must first eliminate a more specific head or exclusion before using the residual head.
Evidence to retain
The section 94 support file should contain the receipt agreement, bank trail, valuation material, payer information and a written head-of-income analysis tied to amounts not deductible.
1961 Act bridge
| Legacy provision | Legacy heading | Mapping |
|---|---|---|
| 58 | Amounts not deductible. | Renumbered / mapped |
The bridge is a research aid. Legacy case law carries over only after the current wording and transition rules are matched.
Rules and forms linked to this section
No provision-specific Rule was independently mapped from the current Rules register for this section. That does not mean the wider Rules are irrelevant.
Worked application
A taxpayer incurs expenditure against dividend or wagering income. Section 94 can restrict or completely deny deductions even when the expense is commercially real, so the deduction test must follow the specific income category.
Common mistake
A section 94 mistake is to treat amounts not deductible as a catch-all without testing its specific inclusion, valuation, deduction and exception rules against the actual receipt.
Compliance approach
Identify the statutory trigger for section 94, lock the relevant tax year, reconcile the facts to the operative sub-section, preserve the evidence trail and separately test every linked Rule, Form, Schedule and exception before finalising the return position.
Numeric / timing checkpoints in the operative text
- Dividend/unit-income interest deduction is subject to the section-specific percentage cap where that limb applies; wagering/lottery-type income carries a complete expenditure-disallowance rule.
Related provisions
- Section 93
- Section 29
- Section 59
- Section 2
- Section 95
Current statutory text
Primary-source trail
- Consolidated Income-tax Act, 2025 (as amended by Finance Act, 2026) (official external source)
- Income Tax Department - Act/Rules/Forms hub (official external source)
- CBDT commencement material - Act operative from 1 April 2026 (official external source)
Source status: full Section 94 statutory text in the local source corpus; reconciled to the current consolidated Act control on 8 October 2026.