Changes that 1st April will bring

As per Union Budget 2018, there are several changes that will come into being from the new financial year which will commence on 1st April. Here is a list of Changes that taxpayers will witness from 1st April 2018: -

• Change in Cess

There was no significant change in Tax Slab for the individuals and HUFs, as per Union Budget 2018, but it abolished Education, Secondary and Higher Education Cess that summed up to 3%. This cess was replaced by Health and Education Cess that is supposed to be levied at 4% including surcharge.

• Standard Deduction

According to Budget 2018, standard deduction of up to Rs 40,000 can be claimed by an Individual who are salaried employees from 1st April. This deduction will replace conveyance allowance that is Rs. 19,200 and medical reimbursements that comes up to Rs. 15,000. The maximum benefit, which an individual will get from this change, is Rs. 5,800.

• Deduction for Senior Citizens

Currently, a deduction of Rs. 10,000 can be claimed under section 80TTA for the individuals with respect to the interest income from the deposit accounts held in any co-operative bank or Post Office. For Financial Year 2018-19, the interest of up to Rs. 50,000 will be income tax free for senior citizens.

• Deduction for Medical Expenditure

Earlier, the deductions that a taxpayer could claim was Rs. 60,000 and Rs. 80,000 for critical illness of Senior citizens and Super Senior Citizens respectively. As per Budget 2018, from 1ST April, the taxpayers who fall under the category of Senior and Super Senior Citizens can claim a deduction of Rs. 1lakh for their medical expenditure.

Steps to File Revised Returns

If you made some errors in filing your returns, you can rectify it by filing a revised return. Here we will tell you how you can file a revised return.

If you have filed an incomplete ITR or made some errors while filing Income Tax Returns, then you will have to file your revised returns with the required correction, if you have made any error unintentionally.

You must be thinking how you can file your revised Income Tax Returns, well you can do that in 7 simple steps and they are: -

• Firstly, you will have to go to the official e-filing website of the Income Tax Department.
• Choose the relevant assessment year and Form from the dashboard, in order to file the ITR of the year you wish to file.
• You will have to open the excel sheet, that consist of your original ITR and then you will have to go to the file revised return option. You will have to choose section 139(5) from the drop-down menu.
• Then you will be asked to submit your ITR Acknowledgement number along with your previous date of filing your ITR in the revised form.
• Make all the required changes and file your revised returns with all the necessary corrections.
• Once you are done filing your revised return, you just need to generate the XML of the it and upload the same.
• Last but not the least, you will have to download your revised ITR-V and send it CPC Bangalore, with 120 days of filing returns, either manually or electronically.

Things every Taxpayer must know

As a taxpayer we must be aware of the procedure and the facilities we can avail, while efile Income Tax Return. Paying Income Tax is just not enough, a taxpayer should know the basics of Income Tax, so that they can file their Income Tax without any errors. Here are 5 things which a taxpayer must know before filing ITR: -

What does Financial and Assessment Year mean?

Financial year is the year in which you earn the Income, it starts from 1 April every year and ends on 31st March the following year. Assessment year is the year following the financial year. For e.g. If 2017-18 is the Financial year we are talking about, the relevant Assessment year would be 2018-19.

Income Tax Slabs

There are different income tax rates for different classes of taxpayers. As a taxpayer you must know which tax slab you fall under and what is the rate at which you are supposed to pay your income tax. To know about which Income Tax Slab you belong to, click here

Check Form 26AS to claim TDS

If any tax is deducted you can check it in your Form 16, which your employer provides you. However, for tax deducted on other incomes can be checked in Form 26AS. Other than TDS, Form 26AS also reflects payment of Advance Tax etc.

How to E-Verify your ITR?

E-verifying your ITR is something you cannot afford to ignore. Every year once you file your ITR, you are supposed to E-verify it, as not E-verifying your ITR is as good as not filing your Income Tax Returns. You can E-verify your returns either manually or electronically, by sending the acknowledgement of ITR to CPC Bangalore within 120 days of filing returns.

Income from previous employer

After changing the job taxpayers often forget to give the information of their previous employer to their new employer. In this case tax is deducted on the assumption that income for the remaining months is the only income for the year. However, this poses a problem when such individual files their tax returns after the year-end. As, the incomes from the two employers are added and the deduction and exemption are halved, and tax liability arises on the taxpayer’s part.