Filing your ITR involves reporting the income that you have earned in a particular year. Along with that, you also need to provide the details of taxes that you have paid in the form of TDS, TCS, advance tax etc. and to furnish all these details you’ll need a few documents.
Some that contain your personal details like your PAN and Aadhaar, and others like your Form 16 and 26AS that have an account of your income and taxes. Here’s a list to help you out.
Common docs required:
1. Basic documents like PAN, Aadhaar and your bank account details.
2. Form 26AS: This is your annual tax statement. Form 26AS contains the
details of all the taxes that have been paid against your PAN. This could be your TDS deducted from salary or interest, any advance taxes that you have paid, or even self-assessment taxes, the record of all these is available in this statement. You can access your Form 26AS by logging in to the e-filing portal.
3. AIS (Annual Information Statement): This one’s fairly recent. AIS was introduced in 2021 and this statement includes all your financial details like savings account interest, dividends, purchase and sale transactions of securities/immovable properties among many others.
The income tax department gets this data from various entities like banks, depositories like CDSL and NSDL, etc. This may not include all the transactions but the government is trying to fetch data from all possible sources. Hence, you should tally your incomes from AIS while filing your ITR so that there are fewer chances of a mismatch notice.
Moreover, if you feel that some information provided in the AIS is incorrect, you can also provide feedback on the portal with regards to why the information is incorrect and the ITD will then reprocess the same.
Income-wise documents:
If you have salary income, you’ll need:
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Form 16: If you are a salaried individual, this is the most important document you need. Form 16 will be issued by your employer and the due date to issue the same is 15th June of the relevant assessment year. So your employer should hand over your Form 16 for FY 2024-25 by 15th June 2024.
Form 16 has 2 parts, Part A and Part B. The first part contains the details of the TDS that was deducted from your salary and the second part has a breakdown of your salary and the deductions that you have claimed.
If you have capital gains, you’ll need:
- Purchase and sales deed: If you have sold any property, you’ll need the sales and purchase deed to enter the transaction details while filing your ITR.
- Tax P&L statement: If you invest in stocks and have incurred capital gains, you’ll need the tax P&L statement from your broker to add details of the same.
Apart from these, if you are claiming any exemptions like 54 and 54F on your capital gains, you’d need the details of the investment made as well.
For any income from business/profession:
- Balance sheet and P&L statement: If you have any income from a business or profession, you are required to maintain your books of accounts and even report them in the ITR. Hence, you will need the balance sheet and P&L statement to add the required details.
- Receipts of expenses: If you are claiming expenses, you’ll need the receipts of the payments made w.r.t. your business/profession.
Apart from these, if you have made any tax-saving investments like ELSS mutual funds, PPF, medical health insurance premiums, etc., to claim deductions, you’d need the relevant documents related to these investments as well.
This is not an exhaustive list. You might need more documents based on what details you’ll be required to add to your ITR.
Moreover, these documents are only required to furnish the details and none of these need to be submitted while filing your ITR. But, remember to keep them handy as you may need them in case of a scrutiny assessment or notice.
Also, here’s a video on complete guide to ITR filing, especially if you’re filing for the first time.
Happy tax filing!