The Ultimate Guide to Filing Your Income Tax Returns Correctly

Filing of income tax returns is no longer a hassle as it used to be with online filing. It is now convenient to file returns from the confines of your offices or home in a short span of time.

For this financial year, 31 March 2020 is the last date of filing income tax returns for both non- resident and resident having income which is taxable in India i.e. Salary, Rental Income, Other Income, Business Income, etc. Here are some important points to be taken care of while filing your income tax returns.

Choose the right form for filing returns

There are various forms available for filing income tax returns for different assesses as per their nature of income. Hence, it is the first step where you need to be careful whether you are choosing the correct form or not.

Carefully quote the PAN & Tax Credit Statement

After logging in on the government portal you have to enter your Permanent Account Number (PAN) cautiously as even normal mistakes can bring the complexity of the number. If you wish, you can confirm your PAN Number online at the website of income taxes.

All the assessees can see a statement of TDS by the income tax department which is called Form 26AS and it is available online too. This form includes all the details of TCS: Tax collected at source, TDS: Tax Deducted at Source, self-assessment tax, advance taxes or regular assessment tax and details of refunds if any issued.

Update bank details and disclose another source of income

As per the new income tax system, up to 25,000 of refunds are allowed to be credited to your bank account. In this condition, one must be alert while handing out their bank account number, BSR, and MICR codes as correct bank details are necessary to update.

Along with that, you have to mention if there is any income from other sources such as any earning from mutual funds, capital gains, investments, saving deposits, or any other business income.

Add details of any foreign assets

According to the Income Tax Act of 1961, any of the citizens who are tax-payer of India are required to pay taxes for their other assets also which are located anywhere globally. Taxpayers have to provide details regarding other assets or the incomes earned abroad along with their bank account details if they held it abroad.

Don’t forget to claim deductions for tax savings

While filing your income tax return you should keep this in mind that certain forms of payment could be deducted at the time of filing claims so you have to check that which of them could be eligible for the same under section 80C, 80D, etc. This has to be done at the time of filling out the relevant information in the forms so that you can get credit while processing the returns itself.

File your income tax returns on time

Filing the income tax retunes in time is very important otherwise you have to face interests and penalties. As you need to be aware that taxpayers bear the penalty for filing wrong income tax returns. Filing returns timely allows you quicker processing of ITR and refunds if there is any.

Hopefully, these small but crucial details would help you to file your income tax return correctly and you’ll always be good to go.