How soon should you file your income tax return :The Income Tax Department has enabled all the forms and utilities required for filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) in April itself. But this does not mean that most of the taxpayers filing income tax returns will start the process of filing their ITR from now. The deadline for filing income tax returns is usually 31st July. Therefore, most of the taxpayers do the work of filing returns comfortably. But what is the right strategy to file ITR return? Should you file your return now or wait a while?
These taxpayers will have to wait
Even though formally income tax return filing (ITR Filing) time has started, but most of the people in the salaried class cannot do so right now even if they want to. The biggest reason for this is that before filing the income tax return, they have to wait to receive Form-16 from the employer as proof of deduction of TDS on their salary. Similarly, for tax saving, those who invest in bank FD have to wait for Form 16 from the bank. Generally banks and employers do this only on or after May 31. Many times the forms are received from the employer till 16th June. Form 16 is a certificate that the bank or employer has deducted their TDS and deposited it with the government. Obviously, it would not be right for people of salaried class or those investing in bank FD to file ITR before receiving Form 16.
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Deadline for filing TDS return is 31st May
The deadline for filing TDS returns for the quarter January-March 2024 for TDS deductors is May 31. After which they may take another 15 days to issue you TDS certificate or Form-16. If this happens, you will be able to start the process of filing your return only after June 15. Even if you have maintained all the details of your TDS deductions properly and are confident that you can do all the calculations correctly, you should still not file the return before receiving Form 16, because there will be mismatch between Form 16 and the data filled by you. If there is any mismatch then you may have to face unnecessary trouble later. Apart from this, unless the TDS return is filed by the person deducting TDS on your salary or return, the Income Tax Department will not process your return.
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Don’t wait until the last minute
It is important to wait for Form 16, but it does not mean that you keep waiting for the deadline of 31st July. As soon as you receive all the necessary documents including TDS certificate, Form 16, you should file your ITR. This will give you two benefits – firstly, if you want to get a refund, it will be given as soon as possible and secondly, you will be saved from problems and technical glitches due to heavy traffic on the ITR filing website as the deadline approaches.
