ITR Forms are Released but Do not Hurry to File your Income Tax Return

This year the income tax return (ITR) Forms have been notified and released on April 5th. However we suggest you to wait at least till May 31 before you start filing your returns. This might sound unusual because in most cases recommendation is to complete things as soon as possible. The due date for filing the ITR for individuals is July 31, 2017. 

Here are the reasons:

An individual tax payer relies on 2 documents to file his tax return Form 16 and Form 26AS. Form 16 is issued by employer for salaried employees and contains the details of the salary and the TDS deducted by employer. If you are salaried your employer might not have given your Form 16, so you anyway cannot file your returns.

Also  Read: Tax Notices You can get and What to do about it?

ITR 2018 – Wait till May 31 to file Income Tax Returns

Form 26AS contains all the details of the TDS (Tax deduction at source) and TCS (Tax collection at source). The problem is the last date of depositing TDS/TCS is March 31 but the last date of filing TDS return with income tax department is May 31. So you might not see TDS/TCS information of the last quarter of last financial year. This would only reflect once TDS is filed which is May 31.

Majority of notices issued by income tax department is due to mismatch in TDS claimed in ITR and TDS shown in Form 26AS. This can be avoided by referring Form 26AS while filing your ITR.

Also Read: Know More about Form 26AS

Though government has notified the ITR forms early but it’s hardly of any use until they also sync the TDS return dates.