Keep These 10 Documents Handy for Smooth ITR Filling and FILING.

1. Form-16:

If you're an employee and your employer has deducted TDS from your salary then your employer will issue you FORM 16 covering salary, deductions and taxes details by Jun 15 every year.

While filling your ITR online, you'll see many prefilled items in Income tax return. ITR auto populates these items from various compliance submissions your employer made.

You'll find most of these items in your form 16 part B.

# Form 16 has 2 parts - Part A and Part B.

2. Form 16A and Other TDS Certificates:

Collect all TDS certificates applicable to you.

For instance, you should collect -

-> Form 16A

- The banks will issue you Form 16A for the taxes they deducted at the source from your fixed deposit interest, if the interest amount exceeded Rs 40,000/Rs 50,000 (for senior-citizens),

- The Mutual Funds and companies which deducted tax at source (TDS) on dividends they paid you, if the dividend amount exceeded Rs5000.

-> Form 16 B - Your property buyer will furnish you Form 16B if he deducted taxes on buying property. Your buyer will mandatorily deduct tax at source if the property's selling price is over Rs50lac.

-> Form 16C - Your tenant paying you monthly rent over Rs50,000 will issue you form 16C for the taxes he deducted on rent.

Your online ITR will prefill these tax and income figures too. You should compare their accuracy.

3. Interest Income and Other Interest Certificates:

You should gather interest certificates from banks, post offices, PPF, other financial institutions and persons paying you interest.

You should also collect interest and repayment certificates from persons to whom you paid interest. For example - Home Loan interest you paid, Education loan interest you paid etc...

You'll need this interest income earned information while filling in the interest and other income break up in the "Income from Other sources" part of your ITR.

Before filling this interest breakup, please compare the interest certificate amount with your bank statement receipts. Trust me, 5 out of 10 times you'll catch a variance to your benefit.

Compare these interest figures with your AIS too.

You're entitled to a deduction of Rs 10,000 under section 80TTA (of Income Tax Act, 1961) (Rs50,000 deduction under section 80TTB (of Income Tax Act, 1961) for senior citizens) in interest you earned on savings accounts,

Please mark -

-> The interest you earned on fixed deposits, recurring deposits, RBi taxable bonds are fully taxable.

-> The interest on PPF amount is tax free (exempt). You should unfailingly report PPF interest under ITR's exempt income reporting section. You should dutifully report interest earned on PPF contributions exceeding Rs2.50lac in a year.

-> You can claim upto Rs2lac deduction for home loan interest you paid.

-> You can claim home loan principal repayment deduction under section 80C (of Income Tax Act, 1961)

-> You can claim education loan interest deduction under section 80C (of Income Tax Act, 1961).

4. Annual Information Statement (AIS):

This statement details of all your financial transactions you conducted in a particular financial year. You can view your AIS in just 3 clicks after logging into your incometax.gov.in account.

AIS is a superb tool for cross-checking your the financial transactions, incomes, taxes. However, don't panic because AIS reports some figures in error too.

5. Form 26AS:

Download Form 26AS from the new income tax portal.

You may call 26AS as your tax passbook. It contains details of the taxes deducted and deposited against your PAN.

Cross-check the information available in Form 26AS with your TDS certificates and interest certificates.

You should meticulously crosscheck 26AS information with your TDS certificates and interest certificates because many a time 26AS doesn't reflect your TDS as your Tax deductor didn't report right PAN or assessment year in its compliance reports.

You should take 26AS mismatches seriously because the tax department won't allow your TDS claims not appearing in the Form 26AS.

6. Tax-saving Investment, Expenditure Proofs:

Collect PPF investment document (passbook), life and health insurance premium payment receipts, handicap certificate etc tax-savings investment and expenditure proofs to claim deductions while filing ITR.

If you're an employee then -

-> crosscheck your investments with ones mentioned in Form 16 Part B.

-> Match the prefilled information in the ITR with your documents.

-> If you've missed declaring any tax-saving proof to your employer, then remember you can still claim it at the time of filing ITR.

7. Capital Gains from Sale of Property, Shares, Mutual Funds:

Collect your capital gain statements from your brokers, mutual fund houses, registrar office.

Collect your sale deeds and purchase deeds too.

You'd dutifully report your capital gains (long term or short term) earned from the sale of property, shares, mutual funds, bitcoins in your ITR.

Remember, if you've capital gains then you can't file ITR-1. You'd file ITR-2 or ITR-3 only.

8. Aadhaar Number:

As per section 139AA (of Income Tax Act, 1961), you're required to quote your Aadhaar number while filing ITR. If you've applied for Aadhaar but don't have the number yet, quote your enrolment ID in the ITR form.

9. Details of Investment in Unlisted Shares:

If you held unlisted shares during FY 2022-23, disclose that information in your ITR.

Please note in this case you can't file ITR-1, you will have to fill ITR-2.

Youd rightly fill the below 7 details for your unlisted shareholdings in your income tax return.

1 Name of the company,

2 Type of company.

3 PAN of the company,

4 Opening balance as on April 1, 2022,

5 Unlisted shares you acquired during the year with their date of purchase, face value, issue price per share (in case of fresh issue), purchase price per share,

6 Unlisted shares you sold during the year and the amount you received.

7 Closing balance as on March 31, 2023, and cost of acquisition.

10. Bank Account Details:

You should completely provide details of all the bank account(s) you held during FY 2022-23. Even if you've closed your account during the FY, report it. Mention your bank name, account number, account type, and IFS code.

Remember - you should pre-validate the bank account to get the credit of income tax refund in that bank account.