Steps to File Income Tax Return for Salaried Employee

By CA Gauri Chadha

Do you find filing of income tax returns more taxing than the tax itself? To ease this tension the government has made e-filing of income tax returns quick and simple. Pre-filled forms is a step towards that. Based on your salary and TDS deduction the income tax form has all the information which you need to verify whether the data is correct or not. For salaried people the main source of income is salary and interest from savings and fd’s , now if a person is having income from only these sources and is having one house property he can file the simplest ITR form i.e ITR 1 “Sahaj” provided the total of all such incomes does not exceed 50 lakhs. We are here with the in depth details of steps required to file income tax return by following basic three rules

3 SIMPLE STEPS TO FILE INCOME TAX RETURN

STEP 1 – REGISTER/LOGIN TO INCOME TAX PORTAL

First and foremost step is to register on www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in by clicking on register yourself or login if you are already registered. There is a forgot password option as well in case you have forgotten your password. Once you are logged in click on e-file – income tax return – enter the assessment year, choose ‘ITR 1’, select filing type ‘original/revised’, select submission mode prepare and submit online, select bank account for refund and then click continue.

STEP 2 – START FILING YOUR INCOME TAX RETURN

Your return form will have all your details but you need to cross-check and modify if required. There would be 6 schedules in the form. You must go through all the schedules.. The 1st schedule will include your personal information like your name, PAN, address, aadhaar number, nature of employment and the section in which you are filing the return. If you are filling it within the due date you will have to choose sec 139(1). 2nd schedule would be the computation which will be a mirror image of your form 16. Third schedule would be the details of your tax deducted and paid which would be picked up from your form 26AS. Fourth schedule would be taxes paid and verification in which you would see the amount of tax payable or refundable along with your bank account details and verification. There are 2 other schedules which would require to fill up only when you have given any donations.

STEP 3 – E-VERIFY THE RETURN

Last but not the least . You must verify your return because until you verify the return, the filling process is not considered complete. The department will not take up your return for processing unless you have completed the verification procedure. If you delay the verification your refund will also be delayed. There are many ways by which you can e-verify your return, the most common being the aadhaar based OTP followed by net banking, ATM and demat account. If you do not wish to verify it using the above mentioned ways you can send a physical signed copy to CPC Bengaluru.

DOCUMENTS THAT YOU MUST KEEP HANDY WHILE FILING YOUR INCOME TAX RETURN:-

1) Form 16 : One of the key documents which shows your salary break up along with TDS details is your form 16. It is a document which is issued by employers to their employees to validate the fact that TDS has been deducted and deposited against their PAN. You must have both parts, part A and part B handy with you.

2) Bank Statement : The other important document which should be with you at the time of filing your return is your bank statements. Now the bank statement is to be scrutinized firstly to calculate all the interest incomes like savings interest and secondly to check if any other income has been received or any high value transaction has been done. Although all this can be verified using the other significant document which is your 26AS.

3) Form 26AS: It is also known as a tax credit certificate, where all the TDS which has been deducted by various deductors like employer, banks, tenant etc is reflected. It is basically a consolidated statement of all the deductions.

COMMON MISTAKES THAT CAN GET YOU A NOTICE

NOT REPORTING ALL INCOMES – There are few incomes which are not reflected in form 16. So that’s why it’s important to check your 26 AS too. Like interest earned on FD will reflect in 26AS and not in Form 16 .

IGNORING CAPITAL GAINS – Many a times we forget reporting the capital gains or losses which we may have made due to sale purchase of shares or mutual funds. Do remember switching from one fund to another like from liquid fund to equity is considered redemption and then reinvestment. If you have capital gains you cannot file ITR 1 and hence you tend to use the wrong form.

QUOTING WRONG TAN OF EMPLOYER – Even if a single digit out of 10 digit alphanumeric number is wrong, notice will knock your door, due to mismatch between the taxes paid.