Form 16 is basically a detailed statement of salary paid and tax deducted for an individual in a year. It is issued by the employer and contains information like TAN and PAN of the employer which might not be readily available with you. If it is Form 16 that you have been awaiting till now for filing your returns, then there is a good news for you – you do not have to depend on it anymore! There is no doubt that Form 16 is very handy when it comes to entering the income and tax details, but filing ITR in its absence is not very difficult.
Here is how you can do it.
Gather Salary Related Documents
In the absence of Form 16, you can use your pay slips for the period April to March. Payslips usually look like mini Form 16 and all you have to do is add up income from salary and TDS for the past twelve months to arrive at the total figure. Many companies also provide YTD (year to date) figures every month in the payslip and if you see your March 2016 payslip, the YTD figure will match with the Form 16 figures. In short, March 2016 YTD figures are same as Form 16. Even your CTC statement can be referred but one should be careful about variable income components mentioned therein since they could be different from the actuals.
(Image source: ET Wealth)
Obtain Employer’s Details
While filing the income tax return, tax payer needs to mention details like employer’s TAN, PAN, address and TDS in the ITR and all these details are mentioned in Form 16. But in case you don’t have it you can either get it from your payslip or Form 26AS. Another option is to approach your HR department to give you the required details.
Refer Form 26AS
Form 26AS reflects tax deductions against every PAN in the IT department’s database. Make sure that you refer to this statement for TDS details in the absence Form 16. It will not only give TDS deducted on salary but also on interest from bank and other investments.
Sudhir Kaushik, co-founder of Taxspanner.com says, “Verifying all the details as per the Form 26AS is a must as many have been getting notices including limited scrunity notices from the department recently where the ITR filed by the taxpayer does not match with the information available in the form 26AS”.
Match Tax Payments With Form 26AS
If the TDS on salary mentioned in Form 26AS is lesser than what you have arrived at from the payslips then it could indicate that your employer has deducted but not deposited the TDS. In such a case take the income tax figure from the salary slip and arrive at the difference. This difference should be deposited by the employer before filing a return. The employee needs to follow up constantly with the employer to get this matched. The onus of tax payment and filing of return rests with the taxpayer and henceany failure to pay the taxes would result in interest levies and penalties.
Calculate Deductions
If you have disclosed details of home loan to your employer, then the deduction on account of interest and rebate on repayment of principal should be reflected in the salary slips. If not, then you can refer to your loan certificate for the break up and compute it yourself. If HRA forms part of your salary and you live in a rented house then you can claim HRA exemption on that too.
The law provides for penalty on the employer in cases of failure to deposit TDS or issuance of Form 16. However, non-issuance of Form 16 cannot become a basis for not filing your return on time or non-payment of taxes. Also, remember that if you don’t file returns, you will not be entitled to a tax refund.
If you have been facing difficulty in filing your returns in absence of Form 16, please feel free to contact us at support@taxspanner.com.
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