From assessment year 2013-14, E-filing has been made compulsory for the person who is an individual or a Hindu undivided family (HUF), if his or its total income, or the total income in respect of which he is or it is assessable under the act during the previous year, exceeds Rs. 5 lakh rupees for the assessment year 2013-14 onwards. It clearly states total income and not taxable income.
Please read below to know how you can file income tax return online yourself.
You can calculate your income tax payable using the income tax calculator provided at this page: Income tax calculator. Income tax return excel utility also computes income tax, but they only take taxable income as input.
Also make sure that you also see whether the advance tax has been paid on time (See row 101-104 in tax calculator). In case you have paid the full tax but not paid on time as per the advance tax schedule, you are liable to pay interest under section 234 C. Income tax return excel utility also computes interest penalty u/s 234C.
Whatever pending amount you need to pay can be paid online on this link: Pay Taxes Online (Use only Internet explorer for this).
Select challan type as CHALLAN NO. /ITNS 280 and continue.
Select (0021) INCOME-TAX (OTHER THAN COMPANIES) in tax applicable field and
Select (300) SELF ASSESSMENT TAX in type of payment.
Select bank through which you want to pay.
Make sure to add interest penalty as computed by income tax return excel form u/s 234A, 234B and 234C in case of tax payments after due date.
You also pay through your net banking login on Axis Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, State Bank of Patiala, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, State Bank of Mysore, Bank of Maharashtra, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Saurashtra, Union Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, Dena Bank, Syndicate Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Bank, Bank of India, Corporation Bank, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Indore, Vijaya Bank and HDFC Bank.
You can check online if your money has actually reached the I-T Department. For this you have to go to Tax Information Network Website and click the box CIN Based View. Provide details as per the receipt generated while online tax payment.
Fill Income tax return form
Download respective income tax form from income tax website. Income tax department has modified the return preparation software to include automatic calculation of tax and interest.
Income from Salary/Pension, interest and single house property ( but with exempt income is less than Rs. 5,000) : ITR-1
Income from more than one house property, capital gains, salaries, pension, interest and exempt income more than Rs 5,000: ITR-2
Income from partnership in a firm: ITR-3
Income from business/profession: ITR-4
Income from Presumptive Business: ITR-4S
Exempt income here includes transport/conveyance allowance, HRA exemption, agricultural income, insurance maturity amount, LTA, Gratuity, Interest on PPF balance, Leave Encashment, Income from Mutual Funds, Dividends and long term capital gains.
Fill up the form with information provided in Form-16 and the tax calculated in income tax calculator above in Step 1.
If you don’t know Assessing Officer (Ward / Circle), Find it here by submitting your PAN.
After filling up the form, Generate tax return XML from the income tax form by clicking Generate button on first sheet of excels form.
After you have created a XML file from income tax return excel form, Go to Income Tax e-Filing Website.
Create your login on this page on website. It’s not mandatory, to use a digital signature for electronically filing the return.
a) Filing return without digital signature:
Login to income tax site and click on assessment year under submit return menu on left side of page.
Upload the generated XML on this page for 2012-13 assessment year.
On successful upload acknowledgment details would be displayed.
Take printout of acknowledgment/ITR-V Form. You may also download it later. Login and go to link on top right My account > My Returns.
Form ITR-V has to be submitted with the Income tax Department as verification of the electronic filing of the return within 120 days after the date of e-Filing.
Form ITR-V is bar-coded, so it need not to be folded and to be mailed in a A4 size envelope BY ORDINARY or SPEED POST ONLY to “Income Tax Department – CPC, Post Box No – 1, Electronic City Post Office, Bengaluru – 560100, Karnataka” within 120 days after the date of e-filing of return. ITR-V sent by Registered Post or Courier will not be accepted. No Form ITR-V shall be received in any other office of the Income-tax Department or in any other manner. Please keep a copy of the same with you also. After some day of posting the ITR-V, you can check status of receipt by going into account ‘My Account’ -> ‘E-filing Process Status’.
From year 2012-13, even if a person does not have digital signature, he can file online and even does not need to send ITR-V copy to Bangalore CPC (Central processing centre) address.
An electronic signature would be generated online in income tax efiling website after providing certain information from previous year’s income tax return. On validation of such information, unique PIN would be provided to person on email/SMS. This PIN can be used to file income tax return online without needing digital signature. This will also make sure no further hard copy needs to be sent to department.
b) Filing return with digital signature:
In case you don’t have digital signature and you want to buy that, you can buy class 2 or class 3. You can buy digital signature on e-Mudhra website . Class 2 individual certificate is available for Rs. 285 for 1 year validity.
In case return is filed with digital signature, user may take a printout of the Acknowledgment for his record. The tax-payer is not required to submit the Form ITR-V with the Income-tax Department.
To assist taxpayers, a limited call center service has been established at ITD-CPC, Bangalore. Taxpayer queries on status of ITR-V receipt at CPC, Bangalore will be answered on 080-43456700 between 9:30 AM to 6 PM. The service will be available in English, Hindi and Kannada.
One may also call on 1800-425-2229 (Toll free) or 080-43456700 for status of receipt of ITR-V at CPC, Processing status of e-filed returns, Refund issues and any other information related to processing of returns at CPC. The working hours of CPC Call center have been extended to 9AM-8PM on all working days.
I hope this article will help many of us and make tax filing Simple & Easy. So please this year Do-It-Yourself.
Feel free to comment/suggest anything that I may have missed.
Note : No hard copy of any kind of proof needs to be submitted along with Income tax return.
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View Comments
how much time does it take to upload xml file..i am waiting for around 45 mins now? is it take this much time? if not what should i do?
@Sheena,
There might be some issue with income tax website. Please wait for sometime and then try uploading again.
You may also try a different browser FireFox, Internet explorer or Chrome.
Finally I was able to upload the file. There was no error with the XML as such. It seems there was some error with the e-filing website and has been fixed.
@Magesh,
Thanks for the update.
@Sheena, Please try uploading XML now, seems like income tax website has been fixed now.
Hi Pankaj,
I am getting following error
"You have already filed your return, please choose 'Revised' option
Please rectify the Above error(s) and upload your return again "
I have not yet got my ack form. I couldn't find Revised anywhere in portal...can u help me out?
@Sheena,
That means that return has already been filed. Login to Income tax website and Goto My Account > My Returns Link from Top menu bar.
On My returns page, select Assessment Year as 2009-2010, you may download ITR-V from there.
Pankaj,
Thanking you for your great effort of guidelines in step by step.. great job..
"you can check status of receipt by going into account ‘My Account’ -> ‘E-filing Process Status’."
But we need the original hard copy (with seal) of the acknowledgement.. So do you mean tax dept. will send us the hardcopy? Any idea when?
@Sukumar,
In case of e-filing, you will get acknowledgment back in your email from Income Tax department. They will not be sending hard copy to your address.
Thanks for your reply and suggestion Pankaj. The issue is resolved. I do not think it was browser issue. But it seems like there was some problem at the server (Income Tax end) while accepting the return. However, I could upload my returns (ITR-2) after 10AM today (July 15, 2009).
BTW, do you know why there is insistence on sending returns through ordinary post? We all know "efficiency" of our postal services. Hence I am thinking that on a safer side sending another copy of ITR-V once again after 5 days in case I do not get any email response from IT.
On another note, would you know how many (in % and possibly absolute numbers) would be choosing electronic filing of returns voluntarily?
Thanks once again for this great blog!!!
Rajendra
@Rajendra,
As per Govt policy they want to promote Indian Postal services and also they want to keep lowest cost of e-filing so that everybody start doing it this way. They have even created a Post Bag No specially to handle this. I am sure Postal department will also have instructions to handle all posts for Income tax department with care. Postal department also has a chance to prove them efficient this time :) Some day they have to improve to survive.
Moreover, Income Tax department don't want the cost to be even 40-50 Rs as the people will else pay somebody 50 Rs to submit it by hand And that will defeat the purpose and will make income tax office unnecessarily loaded and crowded as usual.
Regarding the figures of people choosing e-filing this year, we can't guess. Even If 100 people do this by reading this post, my purpose to educate people will be solved.
IT department will be publishing the details after filing dates end, You can see last year's stats here: https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/E-filing_report.html
Thanks for the reply Pankaj.
I have one more problem in filing ITR online. I did download Excel file for ITR-1 and filled up. But unable to locate XML file after clicking on Generate XML. Unable to find the path as to where the file is getting stored and it is not asking where to store the file after clicking on Genarate XML. It just says its already stored in some temporary Directory.
@Kalyan,
By default the XML is created in same directory where the Excel file is. Save your excel in a known directory and then fill and generate XML. It will be generated there in same directory.
Thanks for the info Pankaj.
I am having a problem e-filing my IT returns. I actually filed for my return on 6th of June and then was not able to send the ITR-V form across to the Bangalore address on time. I then re-filed a new return as mentioned on the IT website, but when I am trying to upload the same on the website it is not allowing me to do the same. It says that my e-filing has already been done. I am not sure if i need to re-file with a revised return or a new return as mentioned on the website?
Could you please guide me through this process?
@Amit,
In ITR excel, please choose return type as revised, generate XML again and resubmit on Income tax website.
Hi Pankaj,
I tried to efile my IT return by filling the excel utility. I have two form 16 with me and both cleary says the total tax payble and tax paid.
I filled the excel utility by adding both the figures from form 16 to sheet1 and separately filling the figures on TDS sheet and generated the xml after validating. When i tried to upload the xml on the site, it gives error saying "please select proper xml file for processing". Can you help me out on this, or what could be the possible cause of error.
I tried so many times filling fresh excel sheets but it gives same error again and again.
@Aditya,
There was an issue with Income tax website yesterday also and was giving the same error even for valid XMLs.
I would suggest you to try uploading after sometime.
Thanks for the quick response Pankaj...My understanding was that the following statement "In case, Form ITR-V, is furnished after the above mentioned period, it will be deemed that the return in respect of which the Form ITR-V has been filed was never furnished and it shall be incumbent on the assessee to electronically re-transmit the data and follow it up by submitting the new Form ITR-V within thirty days.". Does this not mean that a new return needs to be filed??
@Amit,
yes that means that a new return needs to be filed but currently I don't see a provision on Income tax website to overwrite existing return. It only allows a revised return.
Hi Pankaj,
Thanks for the response. Another thing i would like to know is
I have two form 16 both are correct and showing the refunds on form 16 itself.
When i filled the excel sheet provided by IT department,
I filled the aggregate income added from both the forms on General sheet.
I filled the tax payble on aggregate income also adding the figures on both form 16 which is coming very less according to the income.
I did same for education cess.
Is this the correct way of calculating the tax payble on aggregate income and education cess or these two figures needs to be calculated separately?
Please respond.
@Aditya,
You must add taxable income from both the FORM-16 and then calculate tax on that figure. You may also download Income tax calculator from here.
Calculating taxes separately will give a wrong figure.