ITR Filing: Reporting Salary Details In ITR 1 Get Simplified For FY18-19

This year providing a much needed relief, the department has notified ITR 1 form for tax filing for FY 2018-19 i.e. in sync with form 16 i.e. TDS certificate issued by an employer. This simply means that salaried class taxpayers without any hassles and going into too many details can simply copy-paste the information as provided in the form 16 certificate in their ITR forms too. In the previous years' this though was not the case.

For the last FY 2018-19, the department of tax has extended the date for issuance of Form 16 by employers to July 10 and this is likely to push the deadline for ITR filing beyond the usual deadline of July 31 for taxpayers who are not required to be audited.
Form 16 list the salary details such as the total salary received by you in a financial year and the total TDS deducted against your PAN from your salary and submitted with the government.

Difference in salary reporting for salaried class taxpayer for FY 2018-19

While TDS certificate is used to fill in the salary details, in the previous years, taxpayers were also asked of taxable allowances information which though isn't carried in form 16 and it only includes the exempt part in respect of allowances and as a result income tax return filers faced problem.

Form 16 basically comprises two part in the first part i.e. Part A, taxpayer is provided with all the information on the tax deduction from his salary and the amount submitted with the centre, tax deduction on a quarterly basis is detailed. And the second part i.e. Part B includes the break-up of salary as well as deductions that have been claimed by you to lower your net taxable income under the various provisions allowed i.e. from section 80C to 80C and rebate if any as part of section 89.

Various fields required to be filled in respect of salary in ITR 1 in the previous years i.e. before 2018-19

1. Salary (excluding all allowances, perquisites and profit in lieu of salary)
2. Allowances that are not exempt
3. Perquisites value
4. Profits in lieu of salary
5. Deductions under section 16

And to provide all of this information, the taxpayer needed both their salary slip for each of the month plus the form 16 to arrive at the required information and inputs.

Salary details not required for FY 2018-19

This year the salaried taxpayer is not required to provide the taxable allowances and the information given in the form 16 i.e. exempt allowances will only suffice. And so, without the need of salary slips, taxpayers will be able to file the required information.

Other differences in respect of salary details for FY 2018-19

Also, the deduction claimed from salary income as part of Section 16 has to be clearly specified and this cannot be presented in an accumulated way as till last year and herein the taxpayer has to mandatorily mention the reason for such deduction claimed i.e. it is for any allowance or the standard deduction.

For professional tax, the same is allowed as a deduction and will be specified in form B of your form 16. Also, for this year as the Budget 2018 introduced the concept of standard deduction once again, there will be a new column inserted for it. And notably for entertainment allowance, the deduction of one-fifth of the salary or Rs. 5000, whichever is lower, is granted to only government employees.

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