Income Tax News: How to file ITR without Form 16

All salaried people must file income tax returns (ITR) every year to show their gross taxable income for the financial year. To file ITR, Form 16/16 A is required. It is the record of your tax which your company has deducted from your salary. Every year, by the end of May, Form 16 is released for the previous fiscal year, which runs from April 1 to March 31. 

Form 16 contains everything needed to file your income tax return, including 

·        Allowances exempt under Section 10,

·        Break up of deductions under Section 16,

·        Taxable salary,

·        Income (or admissible loss) from house property reported by an employee and offered for TDS,

·        Income under the head ‘Other Sources’ offered for TDS,

·        Section 80C deductions break up 

How will you file ITR if for some reason you don’t have Form 16? For this, you will require some documents including a salary slip, Form 26AS, or tax credit statement which you will get from the TRACES website. Also, you will need a rent agreement along with other documents, through which you can specify your investments.

How to file ITR without Form 16:

First of all, an individual should check the tax slab he/she comes under, depending on his/her income. One is advised to consolidate all pay slips and calculate the taxable income. Find out the exact tax to be paid using the 26AS form.

What is 26AS form?

The 26AS form provides details of any amount deducted as TDS or TCS from various sources of income for a taxpayer. It reflects advance tax and self-assessment tax details and high-value transactions entered into by the taxpayer.

So, in the absence of Form 16, the following documents are required:

26AS: It helps one assess the TDS deducted by the employer throughout the fiscal.

Salary slips: One should collect the salary slips.

HRA, LTA proof: To claim the HRA deduction, one should see if one has added the rent receipts while filing the ITR.

Proof of investment for deduction under 80D, 80C: Furthermore, investments that are eligible to be claimed for deductions under provisions such as 80C, 80D, 80E etc.

If an individual is liable to pay more tax than the amount in the  26AS form, he/she may have to pay the additional amount before filing ITR.