Your return for income tax is a form enabling you to declare your income, tax deductions, expenses, investments, and taxes. The return is filed for reporting the taxpayer’s annual income. However, it may also be filed even if there is no income for other assorted purposes such as carrying forward the loss incurred during a financial year, claiming a refund of income tax, and tax deductions.
The Government of India has now provided facilities for e-filing or electronic filing of a return for income tax. This article shall explain how to file an income tax return in detail.
The taxpayer must know the income tax return filing's last date and take the necessary steps to complete the procedure. The first step involves calculating his income based on the applicable provisions of income tax laws. The calculation includes all income sources like salary, income from freelancing activities, interest earned on fixed deposits and savings bank accounts, etc.
The calculation of the income tax finally payable is based on the taxpayer's net income, which is obtained after subtracting all statutory and permissible deductions under various sections of the Income Tax Act, 1961 from his total gross income.
The taxpayer needs to summarise the entire TDS from all TDS certificates he receives during the financial year. Form 26AS aids in submitting this TDS summary and all taxes paid in the previous financial year.
The taxpayer must also check which particular ITR form he must fill out. Only ITR 4 and ITR 1 forms are usually available for those filing online. All the other forms need offline uploading after generating XML.
Visit the official Income Tax website, and click the ‘Download’ icon from its menu bar. Then select the particular assessment year, following which the software for offline utilities such as JSON can be downloaded.
After downloading this offline utility, all relevant data on the taxpayer’s income need to be filled in this downloaded file to work out the payable tax or receivable refund. The IT challan’s details can also be submitted on this downloaded form.
Press the ‘Validate’ button to validate your information. This ensures that all information has been duly filled in.
Following successful validation, the ‘Generate XML’ button must be clicked to convert the file into an XML format.
After logging into the IT portal for e-filing, the ‘e-file’ icon has to be clicked to select the ‘IT Return’ option. Fill in all required details like PAN number, number of ITR form, assessment year, and the mode of submission. Following this, click the ‘Upload XML’ icon from the ‘Submission Mode’ drop-down box, attach the ready XML file, and click the ‘Submit’.
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Once the IT slab is ascertained, consolidate all income sources and mark out all tax-saving investments. Get into the e-filing website to complete the form with all the relevant documents. Carefully preserve the receipt of acknowledgement after submission of the return.
This can be done by logging into www.cleartax.in to prepare returns. A printout of the submitted return may be submitted to the ITO (income tax officer) in the corresponding ward.
