It’s simple! It will depend on her income. If your housewife didn’t have any source of income like her income, rental income, interest from Fixed Deposits (FD), Mutual Funds, or Nil investments, etc. then she is exempted from tax filing.

If a housewife has income more than the limit, prescribed by the government, she needs to file an income tax.

Points to Note:

• Either housewife or any person must file the tax return depending upon the income earned during the financial year.
• If the individual aged below 60 years, earning less than Rs 2.5 lakhs are exempted from tax filing.
• Similarly, the tax exemption limit for an individual above 60 years is Rs 3 lakhs and above 80 years is Rs 5 lakhs.

Income Received from Other Sources

Sometimes, housewives receive money from different sources but they don’t know which particular source of money must be treated as her income or not. The clarity will be given from the following cases.

Money received from husband account to wife account for household expenses:

• The money received like this will not be treated as her income.
• If the housewife obtains a sum of money from her husband’s account to her account for household expenses, will not consider it as her income.

Money received from husband’s income and invested in housewife name:

• In this scenario, the income from these investments will not be treated as a wife’s income rather it will be considered as a husband’s income.
• The income earned from the investments will be clubbed with the income of the husband and will be taxed in his name.
• Further, if the income earned from the investment is re-invested, any profit, gain, or any income out of it will be considered as income of the wife and will be taxable under her hands.

• Example 1, the husband has given Rs 5 lakhs to his wife for investment, which has generated an interest income of Rs 1 lakh. Now, this Rs 1 lakh will be clubbed with the income of her husband and taxed under him.
• Example 2, if the interest income Rs 1 lakh is re-invested, then income arising out of it will be taxed under the housewife.