Departmental Examination 2025: Essential Details

The following are the essential details regarding the Departmental Examination 2025 for Income Tax Officers (ITOs) and Income Tax Inspectors (ITIs):

• Departmental Examination 2025 is scheduled to be conducted in online mode, except for both ITO and ITI posts that will be held in offline mode, i.e., pen and paper. These exams will be organised as per the revised rules of the Amended Departmental Examination Rules, 2009, which have been in effect since the 2023 exams.
• The schedule for the examination is detailed below. The syllabus for the exam is the same as the 2024 Departmental Examination.
• The exams, which are scheduled to be held in online mode, will have objective-type questions shown on the screen, and candidates will need to click on the screen in order to respond to the questions. On the other hand, papers scheduled to be held in offline mode, i.e., ITO Paper-IV (Income Tax & Accountancy), will have a printed question paper distributed among candidates, and they will be required to answer those questions by writing in answer booklets provided by the department.
• All exam coordinators (officers in charge of conducting exams) must ensure arrangements are in place for Paper IV of ITO, which includes providing printed answer sheets. They must also arrange seating, invigilation, and materials for other offline exams, including

1. ITI Paper-V (Hindi)
2. ITI Paper-VI (Accounts Exam): for candidates of the old pattern appearing for betterment, or who are partially qualified
3. ITO Paper-V (Office Procedure): also for old-pattern candidates appearing for betterment, or partially qualified

• The eligibility criteria for the 2025 exams will be as per the guidelines stated in the Directorate’s instruction dated 30.03.2007 (Annexe-II).
• For Stenographers Grade II, they are eligible to take the ITO exam only if they have completed 5 years of regular service and have already passed the ITI exam, as per the circular dated 11.07.2012 (Annexe III).
• The date from which the exam is considered passed will be as per the instruction issued on 22.12.2011 (Annexe-IV).
• Under the newly released exam pattern, no particular age limit is set as eligibility criteria to appear for the examination, along with no age bar for partially qualified candidates from the old pattern (as per the letter dated 01.07.2016). However, the total number of attempts for any candidate, including SC/ST and those appearing for betterment, is limited to ten.

Departmental Examination 2025: Official Schedule

The official schedule for the Departmental Examination 2025 for Income Tax Officers (ITOs) and Income Tax Inspectors (ITIs) posts is as follows:

Refer to the official notification for more complete information.

Official Notification