Income Tax Return (ITR) filing season has started. More than 60 lakh taxpayers have filed returns. Returns of about one lakh taxpayers have also been processed. This has revealed from the information available on the website of the Income Tax Department. However, this time the Income Tax Department has increased the deadline for filing returns to 15 September. However, it is not right to wait for the deadline to come closer to file the return. Experts say that there are many advantages to file returns soon.
If you file income tax returns soon, then your refund will soon come to your bank account. Second, taxpayers hurry in filing returns at the last minute, which increases the possibility of mistake in filing. Experts say that now caution is necessary in filing returns. The reason for this is that the Income Tax Department is using technology to check the data of taxpayers. AI and data are being used up to analytics.
Before filing income tax returns, you need to collect three documents. If you do not do a job then you have to download two documents first. These are Form 26AS and Annual Information Statement (AIS). Both of these can be downloaded from the Income Tax Department website. Information of your TDS will be found in Form 26S. AIS will include all your high value transactions information.
If you do a job, then before filing the return, look at the data included in Form 16 carefully. Then, match the data of these three (Form 16, AIS and Form 26AS) once. If no data matches, then you can complain to the Income Tax Department. This is necessary because Income Tax Authorities process your income tax return based on the data included in these three documents. If they find any data wrong during processing, they can issue notice to the taxpayer.
The Income Tax Department has started using data analytics to check taxpayers’ income, expenses, bank transactions, securities related transactions and capital gains. This means that with the help of data analytics, cases like attempting tax evasion or use of wrong data will be caught. Then, the tax authorities can send notice to the taxpayer. He can impose a fine if he is not satisfied with the taxpayer’s reply. Taxpayers may also have to go to jail.
Tax experts say that in filing returns, you must give information about every small and small income in the return. If you have not told about any income, then you can get a notice of tax authorities. In section 276C of the Income Tax Act, 1961, it has been told what steps can the Income Tax Department take against it if the taxpayers are proved. Taxpayers may have to pay a penalty of up to 200 per cent of tax liability if they are found guilty of mistakes like claiming wrong deduction, fake receipt for deduction or using certificate. Not only this, he may also have to go to jail.