Filing Income Tax Returns Online: A Comprehensive Guide
Manual filing of income tax returns has become a thing of the past. And with so many return filing portals available all over the internet, smooth sailing into the new financial year has become easy and absolutely effortless.
Given below are a few detailed steps on how one can file their income tax returns online/e-filing income tax returns:
- Registering Yourself: To begin the procedure of e-filing, you will first and foremost be required to log in to the website of the income tax department. This portal has all the necessary spaces wherein you will have to fill in all the important details. Some of the details that are required at this stage are your PAN details, complete name with surname, birth date, and make a password choice. In this case, your permanent account number will act as your user name.
- Selecting the mode of e-filing: There are essentially two ways in which you can accomplish this. The first is by visiting the section for downloading and choosing the required ITR form, saving it on your personal computer, filling all the particulars manually, and then uploading it back on the mandated portal. The second option is filling the ITR form digitally, by choosing the easy ‘’e-file’’ option.
- Choosing the required form: The ITR forms can fundamentally be classified into three parts. ITR-1 is usually for individuals and people who are either receiving a salaried income, pension in some form, or are gaining profits from houses and other properties. Individuals who have won the lottery also fall into this classification. ITR-2 is usually applicable to individuals who are making profits from capital gains (short-term and long-term). On the other hand, ITR-2A is meant for people who have the possession of one or more properties but are not receiving any capital gains as such. Further, ITR 3, 4, and 4S are applicable for people owning businesses and other professionals operating in the same fashion. This category includes freelancers as well.
- Keeping documents handy: There is a certain set of documents that act as an absolute mandate when you sit down to file your income tax returns. These usually are PAN details, statements of interest, Form 16, certificates of tax deducted at source, any investment details, property loans, and insurance particulars. You will further be mandated to download the Form 26AS that essentially displays a summary of the amount of tax that you have compensated against your PAN card. Validation of your income tax return can be achieved through the help of Form 26AS, if you want to calculate your total tax liability! If your income exceeds an amount of Rs.50 lakh, you will be mandated to fill up an additional column known as ‘’AL” or assets and liabilities. This column mandates an individual to declare the worth of the assets and liabilities that he/she possesses.
- Filling up the ITR form and submitting the same on the portal: In case you are doing it manually, you will first be required to download the accurate Income Tax Return ITR form, fill it, and then choose the option for ‘’generate XML’’. Log in to the accurate website again and choose the option for ‘’upload XML’’.
- Verifying ITR-V: Once your ITR form has been s
ubmitted, you will immediately receive an acknowledgment number. If you have made use of your digital signature to solve this, you will only be required to keep a track of this number. If not, then an automated ITR-V will be generated by the income tax department and sent across to the email ID that you had provided earlier.
Note: The process of filing income tax return is basically incomplete if the last step is not adhered to.
