Authored by Tapati Ghose and Saranya R

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Has your employer not issued Form 16 for the Financial Year (FY) 2019-20?

Are you wondering how to file your Income-Tax Return (ITR) without Form 16 within the fast-approaching due date?

Let us look at the alternate sources of information and steps to file your ITR:

Your salary income could be collated from different sources such as the employment contract for regular salary and further communication from the employer for one-time payments. You could also refer to the income tax computation statement for the respective FY downloaded from the HR portal or such other repository provided by your employer. Further, you could gather your monthly payslips to pull out income and tax deducted information.

If your employer had regularly submitted the quarterly statements with the income-tax department, then your Form 26AS would reflect the amount of salary reported and tax deposited under your PAN by the employer. You could download your Form 26AS from the TRACES portal and reconcile the information from the above sources.

Once the salary income is arrived at, consider the eligible exemptions/deductions such as HRA exemption and standard deduction to compute the taxable salary income.

In case you were employed by more than one employer during the FY, then the salary income and respective taxes are to be aggregated from all employers for reporting in your ITR. However, keep in mind that the standard deduction and other deductions under Chapter VI A can be claimed only once.

You may have reported other income to your employer for deducting tax at source from salary. Rental income (if any) and interest payable against the housing loan for the FY could be reported and claimed respectively under the head income from house property. If you have sold any of your investments during the FY, then the gain/loss in the appropriate head (Profits and Gains from Business or Profession/ Capital Gains) may have been declared to your employer as well.

These may have been declared to the employer based on estimates - before you file your ITR a final computation will be required based on documents such as an interest income statement from the bank, the interest certificate from the bank for interest paid against the housing loan and capital gain statements from your investment banker, to arrive at the amounts to be reported in your ITR.

Collect information relating to your investments and expenses incurred during the FY. Assess if they are eligible for deduction under Chapter VI A. If you had already declared the value of deductions to your employer, verify the numbers with your year-end documents, similar to the process followed for your personal income.

Now that we have the information relating to income and deductions in hand, let us move on to the taxes deducted from you. As previously mentioned, this information would be available in your Form 26AS downloaded from the TRACES portal. Keep this form handy while filling in your ITR.

Once you have collected the required information, follow the steps mentioned below to complete the ITR filing process:

Visit the income-tax portal (www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in)

Ascertain the ITR form applicable to you based on your personal data (residential status, sources of income and your income-level) and download the appropriate ITR form

Fill in the ITR with the information collated above, i.e. the details of income, eligible deductions and taxes deducted from you

Upload the ITR and complete the verification process

Once the return is filed and verified, do not forget to follow up with your employer to issue your Form 16.

On receipt of your Form 16, verify it with the income reported in the ITR filed by you. In case there is any mismatch with the reporting in your ITR, revise the ITR to consider the accurate numbers and file the revised ITR on or before March 31, 2021. Once the revised ITR is filed, verify the ITR to complete the filing process.

Tapati Ghose is Partner and Saranya R is Deputy Manager at Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP

First Published:Jan 8, 2021 5:56 PM IST