In one of the errant tax filing case, income tax payer left the section of TDS blank and submitted the ITR with a 'tax payable' of Rs. 6 lakh, despite form 16 mentioning the amount as being deducted at source or TDS and deposited with the IT department. For the same mistake taxpayer was issued a notice and summoned to be present in person at the Income tax department, Mumbai.

And in its respect, even in a situation when the tax was already deducted from her salary and deposited with the government, Income tax department despite the return being unverified by her asked her to deposit the tax payable amount for avoiding penal actions.

When she questioned how the Income tax could initiate an action against an unverified return and what if she refuses to acknowledge that the return was filed by her, one of the CAs said, "Disowning the Return would invite more trouble, because she is in 30 per cent tax bracket and filing ITR is compulsory for her. So, non-filing of Return would also invite stringent penal actions, especially because she is already under the lens of the I-T Department."

So, while filing the return for AY 2019-20, remember to ascertain that the 'Tax Paid and Verification' page in ITR is not reflecting any 'Tax Payable' amount before final submission of the return. In case the ITR shows some 'tax payable' amount, you need to go to the TDS page and verify if the pre-filled TDS figure tallies with the figure specified in form 16 and form 26AS. In case of any discrepancy, you need to correct for errors accordingly and once again check if some tax payable is reflecting or not.

Further again in case if 'tax payable' is showing, you need to check all the deductions allowed as well as tax saving investment figures. Herein check whether the figures are correctly given for removing any kind of discrepancy. Here again once again check if it is showing as 'Tax Payable'.

Hence submit the return only when there is no tax payable or a tax refund is showing as else pay the tax payable first and give in the details such as BSR Code, Challan Number and Date of payment of tax in the respective fields in the TDS page. And after the self-assessment tax details are given, no longer you will see the tax payable . However in some of the cases, due to rounding off you will see tax refund of Rs. 10.

So, pay heed to this situation as else you may be served a notice from the income tax dept or may have to go through some penal action or pay additional tax.

GoodReturns.in