Skip to main content

E-filing of Income Tax Returns is easy and convenient

Buy Gold Mutual Funds

Invest Mutual Funds Online

Download Mutual Fund Application Forms

Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)

To file income tax returns, most people prefer to delegate the task to chartered accountants or tax consultants. But last financial year saw an 80 per cent jump in the number of e-return receipts over 2010-11.

Maharashtra is learnt to have generated 320,000 receipts, followed by Gujarat and Delhi. Other states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are also catching up. About 10 million taxpayers opted for filing returns electronically last year. This number may inch up by another 10-15 per cent this year as filing returns online has become compulsory for those earning above ~10 lakh.

Those yet to take the online route, could opt for the convenience of filing returns from anywhere in the country and making fewer mistakes.

You can file returns either through the income tax (I-T) departments website or other sites such as I-T department authorised e-return intermediary (ERI) Taxspanner.com, Taxyogi.com, Taxsmile.com, taxshax.com and myITreturn.com.

Personal finance website perfios.com and Aditya Birla groups myUniverse also offer this service. Some others like mutual fund portal Fundsindia.com offer this service with Taxyogi.com, and banks like Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, Syndicate Bank with Taxspanner.com.

Here is how to e-file returns: Register with the tax filing site you choose and fill in your details in the applicable income tax returns (ITR) form. There are various packages available with these sites, which you could choose from. For instance, Taxspanner.com e-file standard package is for employees who are interested in self-preparing and e-filing returns. E-file Plus package is for those who want to e-file themselves, but would like to take assistance of a tax professional to enter their data and review it. And, the eFile Premium package is for those who want to want keep their tax documents in a vault for up to or more than eight years, in case of scrutiny notice (see table for price).

Then there are packages for professionals or those having their own consulting firms and non-resident Indians.

Personal finance website Perfios charges ~140 for those with one Form 16 and ~150 extra for more than one Form 16. That is, in case you have changed jobs in a year.

The portals help you preview the form you fill and make changes if need be. For example, Taxyogi.com has an online chat service in case you get stuck midway.

Make the payment after reviewing your form. The ERI will provide the form in an XML file, which should be stored and uploaded on the I-T departments website. "Then ERIs upload your ITR form on the I-T department's website (www.incometaxindia.gov.in). An acknowledgment is sent to the registered e-mail address, that is, the Income Tax Return Verification form (ITR V).

Sign the printout and send it to the I-T departments Bangalore office, within 120 days of e-filing. Once you receive a confirmation, your e-filing is complete.

In case you have a tax liability at the time of filing, you may not be allowed to do so. Here, you need to either visit the NSDL website or approach a bank with whom you have a net banking account, select the required challan and make a payment for the dues. You will receive a challan identification number, acknowledging your payment, ensure you save a copy of that, he explains.

You can even sign ITR V digitally. Some websites like Stacos.com, myITreturn.com sister concern, offers digital signatures that authenticates your identity to the I-T department at a cost of ~650 for professionals and ~750 for individuals (for two years each). But, it's better to post the documents if you are opting for a digital signature just for filing returns as it would be cheaper.

These websites also provide other services like assisted filing of returns and tax planning. For instance, many allow you to email your Form 16, other details and file returns for you. Some other help you if your ITR V does not reach the I-T department or if you get a scrutiny notice.

To lure more taxpayers, tax filing websites have some more offers. Like, TaxSpanner.com has announced a Tax Back Offer under which one ITR (income tax return form) will be selected every week, and get the entire tax money back, which he/she pays for financial year 2011-12 and myITreturn will allow those who file returns in spite of earning less than ~5 lakh to file it for free

I-T Department Free

1 Keep all relevant documents handy like Form 16, PAN, all statements of income and investment

2 Register with the site you choose and fill in your details in the applicable ITR form online by choosing among various packages as per your requirements

3 Always preview the form you fill and make changes if needed

4 Make the payment after you have reviewed your form

5 In case you need to pay some tax, visit tin-nsdl.com and save a copy of the challans

6 The portal will email your ITR form

7 Upload this form at the I-T department's website after registering with it; download (ITR V) and take a printout

8 Sign the printout and send it to the I-T departments Bangalore office, within 120 days of e-filing

Happy Investing!!

 

We can help. Call 0 94 8300 8300 (India)

 

Leave your comment with mail ID and we will answer them

                        OR

You can write back to us at prajnacapital [at] gmail [dot] com

---------------------------------------------

Invest Mutual Funds Online

Transact Mutual Fund Online

Download Mutual Fund Application Forms from all AMCs

Download Mutual Fund Application Forms

Best Performing Mutual Funds

    1. Largecap Funds        Invest Online
      1. DSP BlackRock Top 100 Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Focused Blue Chip Fund
      3. Birla Sun Life Front Line Equity Fund
    2. Large and Midcap Funds     Invest Online
      1. ICICI Prudential Dynamic Plan
      2. HDFC Top 200 Fund
      3. UTI Dividend Yield Fund
    1. Mid and SmallCap Funds    Invest Online
      1. Reliance Equity Opportunities Fund
      2. DSP BlackRock Small & Midcap Fund
      3. Sundaram Select Midcap
      4. IDFC Premier Equity Fund
    1. Small and MicroCap Funds             Invest Online
      1. DSP BlackRock MicroCap Fund
    1. Sector Funds              Invest Online
      1. Reliance Banking Fund
      2. Reliance Banking Fund
    1. Gold Mutual Funds             Invest Online
      1. Relaince Gold Savings Fund
      2. ICICI Prudential Regular Gold Savings Fund
      3. HDFC Gold Fund

Popular posts from this blog

Tata Mutual Fund

Being a part of the Tata group, the fund has the backing of a very trusted brand name with strong retail connect. While the current CEO has done an excellent job in leveraging the Tata brand name to AMC's advantage, it is ironic that this was just not capitalised on at the start. Incorporated in 1995, Tata Mutual Fund remained an 'also-ran' fund house for around eight years. Till March 2003, it had a little over Rs 1,000 crore in assets and 19 AMCs were ahead of it. But soon after that the equation changed. It was the fastest growing fund house in 2004 and 2005. During these two years, it aggressively launched six equity funds, two debt funds and one MIP. The fund house as of now stands at No. 8 in terms of asset size. This fund house has a lot to offer by way of choice. And, it also has a number of well performing schemes. Tata Pure Equity, Tata Equity PE and Tata Infrastructure are all good funds. It also has quite a few good debt funds. The funds of Tata AMC are known to...
Read more

UTI Mutual Fund

Even though only a few of UTI’s funds are great performers, this public sector fund house has many advantages that its rivals do not. It has a huge base of retail equity investors and a vast distribution network. As a business, it looks stronger than ever, especially in the aftermath of credit crunch. UTI is, by a large margin, the most profitable fund company in the country. This is not surprising, since managing equity funds is more profitable than debt. Its conservative approach and stable parentage is likely to make it look more attractive to investors in times to come. UTI’s big problem is the dragging performance that many of its equity funds suffer from. In recent times, the management has made a concerted effort to improve performance. However, these moves have coincided with a disastrous phase in the stock markets and that has made it impossible to judge whether the overhaul will eventually be a success. UTI’s top performers are a few index funds, some hybrid funds and its inf...
Read more

Salary planning Article

1. The salary (basic + DA) should be low. The rest should come by way of such allowances on which the employer pays FBT and you don't pay any tax thereon. 2. Interest paid on housing loan is deductible u/s 24 up to Rs 1.5 lakh (Rs 150,000) on self-occupied property and without any limit on a commercial or rented house. 3. The repayment of housing loan from specified sources is also deductible irrespective of whether the house is self-occupied or given on rent within the overall ceiling of Rs 1 lakh of Sec. 80C. 4. Where the accommodation provided to the employee is taken on lease by the employer, the perk value is the actual amount of lease rental or 20 per cent of the salary, whichever is lower. Understandably, if the house belongs to a family member who is at a low or nil tax zone the family benefits. Yes, the maximum benefit accrues when the rent is over 20 per cent of the salary. 5. A chauffeur driven motor car provided by the employer has no perk value. True, the company would...
Read more

8 Investing Strategy

The stock market ‘meltdown’ witnessed since the start of 2005 (notwithstanding the recent marginal recovery) has once again brought to the forefront an inherent weakness existent in our markets. This is the fact that FIIs, indisputably and almost entirely, dominate the Indian stock market sentiments and consequently the market movements. In this article, we make an attempt to list down a few points that would aid an investor in mitigating the risks and curtailing the losses during times of volatility as large investors (read FIIs) enter and exit stocks. Read on Manage greed/fear: This is an important point, which every investor must keep in mind owing to its great influencing ability in equity investment decisions. This point simply means that in a bull run - control the greed factor, which could entice you, the investor, to compromise with your investment principles. By this we mean that while an investor could get lured into investing in penny and small-cap stocks owing to their eye-...
Read more

Debt Funds - Check The Expiry Date

This time we give you an insight into something that most debt fund investors would be unaware of, the Average Portfolio Maturity. As we all know, debt funds invest in bonds and securities. These instruments mature over a certain period of time, which is called maturity. The maturity is the length of time till the principal amount is returned to the security-holder or bond-holder. A debt fund invests in a number of such instruments and each of these instruments would be having different maturity times. Hence, the fund calculates a weighted average maturity, which would give a fair idea of the fund's maturity period. For example, if a fund owns three bonds of 2-year (Rs 30,000), 3-year (Rs 10,000) and 5-year (Rs 20,000) maturities, its weighted average maturity would be 3.17 years. What is the big deal about average maturity then, you may ask. Well, knowing a fund's average maturity is important because it tells you how sensitive a fund is to the change in interest rates. It is ...
Read more
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds Download Any Applications
Transact Mutual Funds Online Invest Online
Buy Gold Mutual Funds Invest Now