If
a salaried employee has not received Form 16, then he/she can use Form
26AS and salary slips to prepare and file income tax return or ITR
An
employer provides Form 16 to an employee listing the amount of income
tax deducted and deposited with the government. Form 16 has important
information you need in order to file your income tax return or ITR. The
due date for filing ITRs for the financial year 2017-18, or assessment
year 2018-19, is July 31. Form 16 is issued after the end of the
financial year for which tax was deducted. It essentially has two parts:
Part A has details of the employee and tax deducted. Part B has lists
salary break-up and deductions claimed.
While
filing her income-tax return, an assessee is required to enter details
of total income earned during the year, including the amount of salary
received from all employers. “However, in the case of Form 16 has not
been provided, the employee can use Form 26AS and salary slips to
prepare and file their ITRs.
Form
26AS is essentially a type of tax passbook that has details of various
taxes deducted from your income at source. It can be downloaded from the
income-tax department’s website.
An
employee needs the following details: salary (excluding allowances);
taxable allowance; the value of perquisites; profit in lieu of salary’
deductions under Section 16; and exempted allowances.
If an employer doesn’t provide Form 16, the employee must calculate the figures for each item separately.
“Generally,
the taxable and exempt amounts are specified for each component of
salary in the salary slip. A taxpayer just needs to segregate the salary
components from these categories. Once this is done, it can be reported
in the ITR.
Though
salary has many components, the most popular ones are basic salary,
dearness allowance, bonus, leave salary encashment, and gratuity.
“Though
there are multiple allowances available in the Income Tax Act, one
generally finds house rent allowance, children’s education allowance,
mobile allowances in salary slips,” he says. “The taxable portion of
these allowances is shown separately from exempted allowances in the
ITR.”
Perquisites
include all facilities made available by the employer to employees,
like free accommodation, use of car, interest-free or concessional
loans, education facilities, ESOPs, free food, leave travel concession
(LTC), and medical facilities or medical reimbursement.
From
this year onwards, the ITR 1 form requires detailed calculation of
income from salary or house property, instead of a single figure as was
applicable till the previous year. “ITR 1 is the simplest form for
filing ITR for resident taxpayers who earn their income from salary or
pension, own one house, and their other sources of income add up to Rs
50 lakh annually.
