And give you a mini heart attack - you and only you are responsible to fix that while filling your income tax return.

July is here, which means the tax filing deadline is fast approaching and it's time for filling our income tax return and we are responsible for that. If you are leveraging help from external sources or a Chartered Accountant (CA) then you can skip this post, but if you are filling your income tax return yourself, then this post is for you. In some of my earlier posts, I have posted detailed steps to efill your income tax return, you can refer them here and ask me if you have any questions. I personally help individuals file their income tax returns free of charge as a way of giving back to society. I truly believe that doing good creates a ripple effect, and the goodwill always finds its way back to you.

This tax season, I want to highlight a single, critical issue: a loophole in the Income Tax e-filing portal that can cause major panic among taxpayers - Value of perquisites under section 17(2) not reflected correctly in your Schedule Salary, causing a huge tax demand.

So what is Taxed under Section 17(2)(vii)? If your employer’s combined contribution to EPF, NPS, and Superannuation exceeds ₹7.5 Lakhs, the excess is taxable as a perquisite under Section 17(2)(vii). But the real issue is with your prefilled data not picking the right option inside your Schedule Salary, may be because the portal’s pre-fill system isn't perfectly synced with corporate formatting. And the final result of that will give you a mini heart attack by showing your taxable income artificially inflated, resulting in an unexpected, massive tax demand on the final summary page.

So you need to change this section :

This was prefilled but it does not tell you the impact of selecting this option - it considers the entire amount (your employer’s contribution under section 17(2)) as taxable resulting in a massive tax demand :

And you just need to change that to this :

That's all - you go to the final summary page and see the impact of this small change - the tax on that amount is withdrawn. It's a simple fix, but knowing where to fix is the biggest challenge, they should have given some hint at least😀.

And even after that, I had to pay some tax that was calculated based on interest earned in my saving accounts - they won't spare a penny. But the good thing is that, the payment was well integrated with their site.

It takes you the payments page where multiple options are provided and I paid using UPI, because other modes have some transaction charges - something that may incur additional cost. And as said in the above prompt, you must ensure that, the payment details of the challan is reflected in the taxes paid schedule and your final tax is zero.

And finally I am all set for this Assessment year....Let me know, if you need any help. This post will be shared in my close group as many people are waiting for this, to file their return. As soon as they see this post, they will hurry to file and they know I am there to help 😃 - I tell them to contribute something to a charitable cause - the amount that they would have given to a Chartered Accountant (CA) or Tax Consultant.

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