Check 26AS and AIS – salaried employees should download 26AS and AIS from the ITD website and match the salary income, TDS deposited by the employer, and other income
Form 16 is a tax computation issued by employers to their employees, which contains annual salary information and tax deducted at source information on salary payments. It is not mandatory for a salaried employee to have Form 16 when filing their income tax return.
“You may not have your Form 16 at the time of filing your income tax return. However, you can have salary slips issued by your employer, Form 26AS which contains all income and tax deducted at source (TDS) details, annual information statement (AIS) which gives consolidated details on income, TDS, and statement of financial transactions (SFT), deductions like housing rent allowance (HRA), leave travel allowance (LTA), and investment proofs alongside home loan certificate if any,” says Deepak Kumar Jain, founder and CEO, TaxManager.in - the tax advisory and e-filing portal platform of Rising Advisory Services.
These documents may come in handy as they have all the required information while filing your tax return.
Also, starting from the financial year 2021–22, the Income Tax Department began sharing detailed pre-filled data through e-Return Intermediary (ERI) APIs. “Tax filing platform registered as ERI Type-2 can now access a wide range of taxpayer information with just a single OTP authentication. The info provided is more useful than Form 16, which typically includes only salary information. Therefore, Form 16 is not strictly required,” says Suneel Dasari, founder and CEO of EZTax.in, a tax filing platform.
“A salaried individual should ensure to collect all required information and documents and keep them handy while filing of income tax return, even if he doesn’t have a Form 16,” says Jain.
Steps To File Tax Without Form 16
1) Salaried employees should be aware of the annual salary breakup, which includes basic, allowances, details like HRA, LTA, or so, bonuses, EPF, and professional tax, which should be tallied with gross annual salary or cost to the company.
2) Check 26AS and AIS – Salaried employees should download 26AS and AIS from the ITD website and match the salary income, TDS deposited by the employer, and other income.
3) Collect all deductions and allowances benefits not claimed in Form 16
4) Prepare a final tax computation in both the old and new regimes and assess where the maximum tax benefits are arrived at.
5) File your ITR
6) E-Verify ITR and obtain ITR-V or acknowledgement
Keep a record of all documents (payslips, bank interest, deductions) in a folder or Excel file — useful in case of a notice.