(Last Updated On: June 22, 2016)

Avoid Silly Mistakes in Filing Income Tax Return

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Select the Correct Income Tax Return Form

ITR	Description
ITR 1 (SAHAJ)	For Individuals having Income from Salary & Interest.
ITR 2	For Individuals & HUFs not having Income from Business or Profession
ITR 2A	For Individuals & HUFs not having Income from Business or Profession and Capital Gains and who do not hold foreign assets
ITR 3	For Individuals/HUFs being partners in firms and not carrying out business or profession under any proprietorship
ITR 4	For Individuals & HUFs having income from a proprietory business or profession
ITR 4S (SUGAM)	For Individuals/HUF/Partnership Firm having income from presumptive business
ITR 5	For persons other than,- (i) individual, (ii) HUF, (iii) company and (iv) person filing ITR-7
ITR 6	For Companies other than companies claiming exemption under section 11
ITR 7	For persons including companies required to furnish return under sections 139(4A) or 139(4B) or 139(4C) or 139(4D) or 139(4E) or 139(4F)

Avoid mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Personal Information Schedule

Check the following Points carefully before filing Income Tax return

PAN: To be quoted correctly.
Bank account number has to be given correctly and to be disclosed even if no refund is due. This is to ensure that refund arising from computation of income by the Income Tax department can be paid to the assessee. You must report all the Bank Accounts which are not closed , whether there is any transaction in them or not. As non disclosure of all bank accounts may lead you a penalty. Correct bank account number and IFSC code in the return should be mentioned. In case of any mistake in IFSC code or Bank Account number, the refund will not be credited, and a cancelled cheque showing correct particulars would be required to be submitted to CPC for correction in bank account number or IFS code.
Passport No : You must give your passport number.
Aadhar card No :If you have Aadhar Card number you must report it. It will be used to verify your income tax return and you will not be required to send your return to Banglore.

Name: To be matched with the “Name” mentioned in PAN.
Date of Birth: Mistakes here will result in computation of higher taxes in case of senior citizens.
Address: House/Flat no, City, PIN Code, are mandatory fields. Non filling will result in communications being sent to the PAN database address
E-mail Address: Email is the basis of all communications from CPC. Mistake will result in non-receipt of all intimations from CPC. Avoid using Tax practitioner’s/CA’s ID
Mobile No: Full Mobile number without use of +91 needs to be entered. This is essential for all SMS based communication.
Sex: Should be matched with PAN.
Status: Whether Individual, Firm ,Company , HUF etcShould be correctly filled.
Residential Status – The status of Not Ordinary Resident and Non Resident Indian should be mentioned only where applicable as they are not eligible for certain benefits available to resident assessee

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedule Salary

Total Salary from all employers, irrespective of whether Form 16 has been issued or not, should be entered in Income details in ITR 1 /ITR 4S or Schedule Salary in all other ITR’s.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedule OS-Income from Other Sources

Apart from other incomes following Income Should be reported in Schedule OS-Income from Other Sources

Interest income from fixed deposits,

savings bank account etc.

Interest on Income tax Refund

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedule HP (House Property Income)

In case of ITR-1, theHouse Property loss should be entered as a negative (-) value in the Income details in ITR 1 or ITR 4S. In case of other ITRs, Schedule HP should be filled carefully including the address details. In case of more than one house property do not use ITR 1.
Income from House Property should be entered in Item ‘a’ viz. Annual lettable value/ rent received/ receivable
Municipal taxes paid should be entered in Item ‘c’ viz. tax paid to local authority in Schedule HP-Income from House Property.
A flat deduction of 30% of the amount in Item ‘g’ is the only deduction permissible for repairs and such expenses will be auto-populated in Item ‘f’ of Schedule HP.
Deduction for Interest on housing loan should be entered in Item ‘h’ viz. Interest payable on Borrowed Capital and is restricted to Rs.2,00,000 for ‘Self Occupied’ Therefore, correctly mention whether the house property is Self-Occupied or Let Out in Schedule HP.
In case of multiple house properties details of each house property have to be entered completely as mentioned above.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedule CG-Capital Gains.

Income from Short Term Capital Gains should be entered in Item ‘A’ of Schedule CG-Capital Gains.
Most mistakes in STCG (Short Term Capital Gain)are due to incomplete filling of the Schedule CG (Capital Gain). Correct section codes should be used depending upon the type of capital gain.
Non filing of full value of consideration or filling only expenditure or cost of acquisition under various sub categories of CG leads to incorrect computation of income.
The quarterly breakup of capital gains in the CG schedule should be mentioned which is necessary for computation of interest under section 234C.
Exempt LTCG should not be entered in CG schedule as well as in Part B-TI, it has to be mentioned in Schedule EI.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedule BP- Income from Business Profit

Income offered under the heads other than BP included in P&L should be reduced in Schedule BP.
Income offered under section 44AD (Deemed Income) if included in Profit before tax should be reduced in Schedule BP.
Specific schedule for ESft, 10A etc. should also be filled when a claim is made in schedule BP.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Part B – TTI (Tax on Total Income)

Part B TTI Relief under sections 89 if applicable

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Schedules CYLA, BFLA and CFL

Most taxpayers leave these Schedules completely blank. These schedules are used for permissible adjustment of loss of one head of income against another head of income. The main checkpoints are:
Only positive values need to be entered. No negative value is required to be entered in CYLA (Current Year Loss Adjustment), BFLA (Brought forward Loss Adjustment), & CFL (Carry Forward Loss).
The Amounts in Schedule CYLA/BFLA will populate automatically, however taxpayer will be allowed to claim carry forward of loss only if appropriate columns have been entered in Schedule CFL.
Carry forward of Current year losses though claimed in return will not be allowed if the return is not filed within due date.
The assessee will be allowed to claim carry forward of loss (if any)only if appropriate columns have been entered in Schedule CFL.
The respective schedules should also contain loss details for CYLA.
Date of filing of return for relevant year in CFL should be filled.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return :- ITRs deductions

In case of ITR-1 and 4S, the deduction amount claimed should be filled in Income For other ITRs deductions where separate schedules are required, the same should be FILLED WITHOUT FAIL- E.g. 80G, 80-IA, 80-IB, etc. Deductions will not be allowed If specific schedules are not filled,
All deductions have specific criteria and limits for claims. In the present utility a user enterable field for claiming deduction has been mentioned & correspondingly System Value for deduction claimed is also mentioned for the benefit of the assessee.
The sum of all deductions cannot exceed the total income.
Deduction cannot be claimed against income chargeable to special rate tax.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return :- Schedule TDS and TCS

A major reason for difference in refund amount during processing is that the details of tax payment or TDS do not match with the data available with the Department. The critical checkpoints are as under:

Tax deduction Account Number (TAN) of the Employer/Deductor is the unique number for matching TDS claims as reported by the Employer/Deductor. The TAN is mentioned on the Form 16 given by the Employer or on the Form 16A given by the Deductor. In case the TAN details do not match TDS credit will not be allowed.
Where the TAN entered is valid but the Employer/Deductor does not report the exact TDS details to the Department, especially the taxpayer Permanent Account Number (PAN), and then TDS cannot be matched. Therefore it is advised to check Form 26AS for the amount which has been deposited by persons deducting tax on behalf of the If any mismatch exists, the taxpayer should bring it to the notice of persons deducting tax so that they can act accordingly.
TDS on salary should be claimed ONLY in schedule TDS Salary (ITR1) or TDS1 (ITR 2-4).
TDS on income other than salary should be claimed ONLY in TDS on income other than salary (ITR 1) or TDS 2(ITR 2-4).
Claiming of TCS claims in TDS schedules and vice versa will lead to mismatching, which results in excess demand or lower refund. The claim of TDS amount should be made in “TDS deducted” as well as “TDS Claimed for the year” column in schedules TDS2 & TCS.

TDS claims should match with Form 26AS . Therefore it is advised to check Form 26AS for the amount which has already been deposited by persons deducting tax on behalf of the taxpayer. Thereafter, the taxpayer should bring this fact in the notice of persons deducting tax so that they can act accordingly..

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return :- Schedule IT

Dates of deposits should be entered in DD/MM/YYYY format and not in any other format. Exact amount paid as per Challan should be claimed in return without any rounding off.
Individual payments should be separately claimed. Clubbing of multiple challans or entering consolidated payments will lead to mismatch.
In case of Tax payments of Advance tax or Self-Assessment tax, the PAN used to submit the tax Challan to the bank should be the same as the PAN used to submit the return. Without a valid PAN the tax payment received from the bank would be in suspense and cannot be matched with tax payment claim as entered in the return.
While making the tax payment at the Bank, NO MISTAKE should be made in the challan while entering the PAN, Name, Major head (20 or 21), Assessment Year, Type of tax payment {advance tax (code 100), Self-Assessment tax (code 300)}, tax applicable (Income tax other than companies). Any tax payment made under code 400 corresponding to ‘Tax on regular Assessment’ cannot be used for matching and accordingly credit cannot be given against advance tax or self-assessment tax claims.
The Challan Identification Number (CIN) is the combination of BSR code (any bank branch’s unique 7 digit identification number issued by ftBI), date of deposit of challan (DD-MM-YY), and the running serial number of the Challan, as is mentioned by the Bank while accepting tax payment on its seal. In case this is not clearly legible, the Bank can be requested to provide correct details. This must be entered correctly in the return while claiming credit.

Avoid Mistakes in Filing Income Tax return : Verifying the Income Tax return after Filing

Once e-Filing is done (without digital signature or EVC), ITR V needs to be sent within 120days to the CPC. In case ITR V acknowledgement is not received within 120days, the return will be treated as defective.
The assessee may call up the CPC call centre to verify status. To view the ITR V receipt status GO TO “Status “on the home page of e-Filing portal.
Assessee needs to fill his email address, mobile number correctly to ensure appropriate communication from the Income Tax Department. The use of the Tax practitioner/CA’s email address may not be appropriate.