CBDT Eases Departmental Exam Rules for Income Tax Staff

The Directorate of Income Tax (Human Resources Development), under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), has notified partial amendments to the Departmental Examination Rules, 2026. The amendments apply to departmental examinations conducted for Income Tax Officers (ITOs), Income Tax Inspectors (ITIs) and Ministerial Staff. The notification was issued on July 22, 2026, following a review of the examination rules published on May 29, 2026.

Under the revised rules, the negative marking applicable to objective-type papers has been reduced. Instead of deducting one-fourth mark for every incorrect answer, only one-eighth mark will now be deducted in the examinations for ITOs, Income Tax Inspectors and Ministerial Staff.

The CBDT has also revised the qualifying criteria for the Ministerial Staff Examination. The minimum passing requirement has been reduced from 50% to 45% in each paper for general-category candidates. For SC, ST and PwBD candidates, the qualifying percentage has been lowered from 45% to 40%. The same revised percentage will apply when granting exemptions to candidates who qualify in one or more papers.

Candidates who have partially cleared papers under the Departmental Examination Rules, 1998, will be treated as having passed the examination after qualifying the remaining papers under the revised criteria. The passing marks for the Rajbhasha Hindi paper have also been reduced to 45% for general candidates and 40% for SC, ST and PwBD candidates.

For the ITO Examination, 15 marks will continue to be allocated to multiple-choice questions based on the principles laid down in Supreme Court judgments. However, instead of prescribing fixed subject areas, the list of applicable case laws will now be issued separately for each examination year along with the examination notification. The Directorate has accordingly released a list of 20 case laws for the ITO Departmental Examination 2026. CA Sansaar