Income Tax Return (ITR) Filing

What is an income tax return?

An income tax return (ITR) is the annual statement in which a taxpayer declares income earned in a financial year, the deductions claimed against it, the tax computed on it, and the tax already paid by way of TDS, advance tax or self-assessment tax. Returns are filed with the Income Tax Department, which functions under the Central Board of Direct Taxes in the Ministry of Finance, on the e-filing portal incometax.gov.in.

Filing is not merely a compliance ritual. A filed and verified return is the document banks ask for when assessing a home loan, that embassies ask for with visa applications, and that establishes income for a self-employed person who has no salary slip. It is also the only mechanism for recovering excess tax: if your employer deducted TDS on the assumption that you would not make any tax-saving investments and you subsequently did, that money comes back to you only through a return.

Two identifiers matter throughout. PAN is your login user ID and the anchor of your entire tax record. Aadhaar must be linked to that PAN; without the linkage, returns are not processed and refunds do not issue.

Who has to file an income tax return?

You must file if:

• Your gross total income exceeds the basic exemption limit applicable to you before claiming deductions. Because the limit differs between the old and new regimes and is revised in Finance Acts, check the figure for the relevant assessment year on incometax.gov.in rather than carrying forward last year's.
• You want a refund of TDS or advance tax paid in excess. No return, no refund.
• You need to carry forward a loss, from business, capital gains or house property, to set off against future income. This requires a return filed by the original due date.
• You fall within the specified high-value transaction categories that trigger a mandatory filing requirement irrespective of income, such as large deposits in current accounts, high electricity spending or substantial foreign travel expenditure. The precise thresholds are notified and change, so verify them.
• You are a resident holding foreign assets or signing authority in a foreign account.

You do not need to file, or cannot use the simple forms, if:

• Your total income is below the exemption limit and none of the mandatory triggers apply. Filing remains optional and is often still worth doing to build a record.
• You want to use ITR-1 (Sahaj) but do not qualify. According to the Income Tax Department's guidance, ITR-1 applies to resident individuals with total income up to Rs 50 lakh from salary, one house property, other sources and limited capital gains, and the department lists restrictions including that the filer cannot be a company director, cannot have short-term capital gains and cannot hold unlisted equity shares. A person in any of those situations is not eligible for ITR-1 and must move to ITR-2 or ITR-3.
• You have business or professional income and try to file ITR-1 or ITR-2. Those forms are not eligible for you; ITR-3, or ITR-4 for presumptive income, applies.
• You are a non-resident attempting to file ITR-1 or ITR-4, both of which are for residents.

Filing the wrong form is not a trivial error. A return filed in an inapplicable form can be treated as defective, and a defective return that is not corrected within the period allowed is treated as not filed at all.

Which ITR form applies to you?

What documents do you need?

You do not upload any of these with the return. They are working papers you use to fill the form and must retain in case of scrutiny.

Is there any fee to file a return?

No. Filing an income tax return on incometax.gov.in is free. There is no government fee to file, to e-verify, or to file a revised return. The Income Tax Department provides both an online utility in the browser and a downloadable offline utility that generates a JSON for upload, both at no cost, and for a salaried taxpayer with Form 16 the pre-filled online form typically takes fifteen to twenty minutes.

A chartered accountant or a private filing website may legitimately charge a professional fee for preparing your return, and for someone with capital gains, foreign income, business accounts or a complicated year that is often sensible. But be clear about what you are paying for. It is professional advice, not access. There is no "government processing charge", no "e-filing fee" and no "refund release charge". Anyone who tells you a payment is needed to release a refund is running a scam, and the Income Tax Department never asks for card details, bank passwords or OTPs to process a refund.

The one genuine payment that can arise is a late filing fee under section 234F for a belated return, together with interest under section 234A on unpaid tax. Those are statutory levies paid to the government through the portal, not fees paid to any intermediary.

How to file your income tax return online

1. Go to incometax.gov.in and register with your PAN if you have not already, or log in with your PAN as user ID and your password.
2. Before starting, open e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement (AIS) under Services. Download both and note every entry: salary, interest, dividends, share and mutual fund transactions, property deals. The department already has this data.
3. Check that your PAN is linked with Aadhaar and that at least one bank account is pre-validated under Profile → My Bank Account. A refund cannot issue to an unvalidated account.
4. Go to e-File → Income Tax Returns → File Income Tax Return, select the assessment year, and choose Online as the mode.
5. Select your status, Individual, HUF or Other, then the ITR form that applies to you from the table above. The portal offers help in choosing.
6. State your reason for filing and select your tax regime, new or old. The choice matters: the old regime allows deductions such as 80C, 80D and home loan interest, the new regime offers lower slab rates without most of them.
7. Work through the pre-filled schedules, correcting anything that does not match your own records: personal information, gross total income, deductions, tax paid, and total tax liability. Reconcile against Form 26AS and the AIS as you go; every unexplained gap is a future notice.
8. Review the computation summary. If tax is payable, pay it through e-Pay Tax on the portal and enter the challan details before submitting.
9. Preview and submit the return.
10. E-verify immediately. Choose Aadhaar OTP, net banking, an Electronic Verification Code through a pre-validated bank or demat account, or a Digital Signature Certificate. Verification is not optional and not a formality.
11. Download the ITR-V acknowledgement for your records.

How to verify if you cannot e-verify

1. Download the ITR-V from the portal after submitting the return.
2. Print it and sign it in blue ink.
3. Post it by ordinary or speed post to the Centralised Processing Centre, Income Tax Department, Bengaluru, at the address printed on the ITR-V itself.
4. Ensure it reaches CPC within 30 days of uploading the return.

The Income Tax Department treats the date of uploading as the date of furnishing the return only if e-verification or the ITR-V is submitted within 30 days of uploading. Verify later than that, and the date of verification becomes the filing date, which can convert a return filed comfortably before the deadline into a belated one carrying a late fee.

How to check your return and refund status

1. Log in to incometax.gov.in and open e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Filed Returns.
2. Read the status against the assessment year: Submitted and pending for e-verification, Successfully e-Verified, Processed, or Defective.
3. Once processed, open the intimation under section 143(1) to see the department's computation next to yours and whether a refund or a demand results.
4. For refunds, use Services → Know Your Refund Status with your PAN and the assessment year. The screen shows whether the refund has been issued, the mode and the date, or the reason for failure.

What are the deadlines?

For individuals whose accounts do not require audit, the customary due date is 31 July following the end of the financial year. Taxpayers subject to audit, and those with business or professional income covered by later dates, file afterwards. The government has extended the individual deadline in several recent years, sometimes close to the original date, so confirm the operative due date for your assessment year on incometax.gov.in rather than relying on a date quoted elsewhere.

Two related timelines matter as much as the due date. E-verification must happen within 30 days of uploading. And a belated return can still be filed after the due date, with a late fee under section 234F, interest under section 234A on unpaid tax, and the loss of the right to carry forward certain losses.

Why returns get flagged, and how to avoid it

• Income missing that appears in the AIS. Savings interest, fixed deposit interest, dividends and share transactions all show up in the department's records whether or not tax was deducted. Leaving them out is the single most common cause of a mismatch notice.
• Wrong ITR form. A return in an inapplicable form can be declared defective, and an uncorrected defective return is treated as not filed.
• Failure to e-verify. The commonest and most avoidable failure of all. The return simply does not exist until it is verified.
• PAN not linked with Aadhaar. An inoperative PAN blocks processing and refunds, and can cause TDS to be deducted at higher rates.
• Bank account not pre-validated, or an account not in the taxpayer's own name. The refund fails and has to be re-issued after the account is corrected and revalidated.
• Deductions claimed without proof, or claimed under the new regime where they are not available. Choose the regime deliberately after comparing both computations, which the portal shows you.
• Form 26AS and Form 16 disagree. Take the matter up with the deductor, since only they can revise the TDS statement; filing a return that ignores the gap creates a demand you will spend months contesting.

If a return is found defective, the department issues an intimation on the portal, and you respond by filing a corrected return within the time allowed. If you spot your own error first, file a revised return under section 139(5), which replaces the original entirely.

Helpline and grievance

Official Income Tax Department helplines, as published on incometax.gov.in:

• e-filing and Centralised Processing Centre: 1800 103 0025, 1800 419 0025, +91-80-46122000, +91-80-61464700, 8 AM to 8 PM Monday to Friday, for returns, forms, intimations, rectifications and refunds
• AIS and reporting portal: 1800 103 4215, 9:30 AM to 6 PM Monday to Friday, for AIS, TIS, SFT responses and e-campaign or e-verification queries
• TDS Reconciliation (TRACES): 1800 103 0344, +91-120-4814600, 10 AM to 6 PM Monday to Saturday, for Form 16, tax credits and TDS statements
• Tax Information Network, NSDL: +91-20-27218080, 7 AM to 11 PM all days, for PAN and TAN applications
• Demand management: 1800 309 0130, +91-821-6671200, +91-821-7151515, with email taxdemand@cpc.incometax.gov.in

Written grievances go through e-Nivaran on the e-filing portal, where a ticket is raised against your PAN and tracked to closure. Use it for a refund that has not arrived long after processing, an intimation you disagree with, or a portal fault. Note the distinction: a grievance is for service failures, while disagreement with an assessment is handled through rectification under section 154 or, if that fails, appeal.

Who is eligible

You should file a return if any of these apply to you:

• Your gross total income, before deductions, crosses the basic exemption limit for the assessment year (the figure differs between the old and new regime, so check the current threshold on incometax.gov.in rather than assume last year's number).
• Tax was deducted at source on your salary, freelance payments, bank interest or rent, and the amount deducted is more than what you actually owe. Filing is the only way to get that difference back.
• You made a business, capital gains or house property loss in the year and want to set it off against income in a future year.
• You deposited more than the notified threshold in a current account, spent above the notified limit on foreign travel, or paid a large electricity bill in the year, since any of these trigger mandatory filing regardless of income.
• You hold a foreign bank account, foreign asset, or signing authority over one, as a resident.
• You are a company director, or you hold unlisted equity shares at any point in the year.
• You want a document that a bank, landlord, embassy or tender authority will accept as proof of income.

You can usually skip filing (though it stays optional and often useful) if:

• Your total income for the year, before deductions, is below the exemption limit and none of the mandatory triggers above apply to you.
• Your only income is agricultural income that is fully exempt and you have no other taxable source.

Match yourself to the right form before you start, since eligibility is form-specific, not just income-specific:

A company director, a person with short-term capital gains, or a holder of unlisted equity shares is not eligible for ITR-1 even if their income is well under Rs 50 lakh; the department's own eligibility conditions rule the form out, not the income figure.

How to apply

Step 1 (online). Go to incometax.gov.in. First-time filers register using PAN, name and date of birth as recorded with the department; returning filers log in with PAN as the user ID.

Step 2 (online, before you touch the return). Under Services, download your Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Form 26AS. Write down every entry in them, salary, bank interest, dividends, and any share or property sale, since these are the figures the department will match your return against.

Step 3 (online, one-time setup). Under Profile, confirm PAN is linked to Aadhaar and that at least one bank account is pre-validated. Both are prerequisites, not formalities; an unlinked PAN or an unvalidated account stops a refund even after everything else is correct.

Step 4 (online). Go to e-File > Income Tax Returns > File Income Tax Return, pick the assessment year, and choose the online mode (there is also an offline utility you can download, fill locally, and upload as a JSON file, useful if your connection is unreliable or you prefer working outside the browser).

Step 5 (online). Select your status (individual, HUF, other) and the ITR form that matches your situation from the eligibility table above.

Step 6 (online). Choose your tax regime for the year, old or new. This has to be an active choice made before you fill deduction schedules, since the two regimes treat 80C, 80D and home loan interest differently.

Step 7 (online). Go through each pre-filled schedule and correct anything that does not match your own records. Reconcile every figure against the AIS and Form 26AS you downloaded in Step 2 rather than trusting the pre-fill blindly.

Step 8 (online, only if tax is due). If the computation shows tax payable, pay it through e-Pay Tax on the same portal and enter the resulting challan details into the return before submitting.

Step 9 (online). Preview the complete return and submit it.

Step 10 (online, mandatory, within 30 days). E-verify using Aadhaar OTP, net banking, an Electronic Verification Code through a pre-validated bank or demat account, or a Digital Signature Certificate. Filing without this step means the return does not legally exist.

Step 11 (offline, only if you cannot e-verify). Download the ITR-V, sign it in blue ink, and post it to the Centralised Processing Centre in Bengaluru at the address printed on the form, so that it arrives within 30 days of uploading.

There is no offline, in-person or paper-first route for the return itself; the only offline component in the whole process is posting a signed ITR-V when electronic verification genuinely is not available to you.

Common reasons for rejection

A return is not "rejected" the way a form-based application is; it is instead treated as defective, invalid, or held up at the refund stage. Each has a distinct, fixable cause.

• Return marked defective under section 139(9). This happens when the ITR form used does not match your income profile, for example filing ITR-1 while holding unlisted shares or being a company director, or filing ITR-4 with income the presumptive scheme does not cover. Fix: respond to the defect notice on the portal within the time given, filing in the correct form; an uncorrected defective return is treated as never filed.
• Return treated as not filed at all. This is the outcome of skipping e-verification, or verifying more than 30 days after uploading. Fix: e-verify immediately after submission using Aadhaar OTP or net banking; if the 30-day window has already passed, the verification date becomes your filing date, so verify as soon as you realise the lapse rather than delaying further.
• Mismatch between reported income and the AIS or Form 26AS. Bank interest, dividends or share transactions left out of the return but present in the department's data is the most common trigger for a scrutiny notice. Fix: reconcile every entry in the AIS and Form 26AS against your return before submitting, not after receiving a notice.
• Deductions claimed without matching proof, or claimed under the wrong regime. Section 80C, 80D or home loan interest claimed while filing under the new regime, where they are not permitted, produces a demand at processing. Fix: use the portal's regime comparison before choosing, and keep investment proofs on hand even though they are not uploaded, since they can be called for later.
• Refund fails despite a processed return. The two usual causes are a bank account that is not pre-validated, and a pre-validated account that is not in the return-filer's own name. Fix: check Profile > My Bank Account, correct or add the account, and pre-validate it again; the refund is then reissued in the next cycle.
• PAN not linked with Aadhaar. An unlinked PAN becomes inoperative, which blocks processing and can also cause TDS to be deducted at a higher rate going forward. Fix: complete the linkage on the portal before filing, not after.
• Form 26AS and Form 16 disagree on TDS deducted. Filing against the higher, unmatched figure from Form 16 while the department's record in Form 26AS shows less creates a demand that is hard to contest after the fact. Fix: raise the discrepancy with the deductor first, since only they can correct their TDS statement, and file against the figure Form 26AS actually shows in the meantime.