Every year around June, Form 16 becomes the talk of the town amongst salaried employees. Whether it’s your first time filing taxes or you’ve done it before, questions like these start popping up:
- When will I receive it?
- Is any value incorrectly reported and how to fix it?
- And how exactly does this help with ITR filing?
Let me explain you everything about Form 16.
What is Form 16?
Form 16 is a document that contains the details of your salary and the taxes deducted from it in the form of TDS (Tax Deducted at Source).
Essentially, it’s a TDS certificate issued by companies to their employees.
It’s divided into two parts:
Part A has your employer’s details and the taxes they’ve deducted from your salary quarterly.
Part B is essentially an annexure to Part A listing all the details your employer considered while deducting your TDS. This includes your:
- salary breakup (basic salary, perquisites, etc.)
- exemptions like HRA, LTA
- deductions you’ve claimed under sections 80C, 80D, etc.
- and the tax regime you chose with your company (employer).
Many companies also provide an additional annexure at the end of the Form 16, which might include more details. For instance, it might include the breakup of 80C deductions (like insurance, house loan principal), or the list of perquisites given to you. This can help if you want to claim any tax benefits while filing ITR.
Basically, it summarises everything related to your salary income and makes your ITR filing a whole lot easier, especially if you’re filing it yourself. Most apps and software import the salary income details from your Form 16.
When will you receive Form 16?
First things first, your employer is supposed to provide you the Form 16. If you’ve switched jobs and worked at multiple companies in a given financial year, reach out to the HR team and request for a Form 16 from all your previous employers.
Now the question is when should you expect to receive your Form 16s?
See, companies are required to file Form 24Q, which is a TDS return form. The deadline to file it for last quarter of the financial year (i.e. Jan–Mar) is 31st May 2025. Once the return is filed and processed by the ITD, Form 16 is generated with the updated TDS details.
So you should expect your company to share the Form 16 anytime in the first 7-10 days of June.
And by the way, they also have a deadline. The last date for employers to issue Form 16 is 15 June of the assessment year. And if they don’t issue it on time, they may face a penalty of ₹100 per day per employee, capped at the total TDS amount.
So yes, there’s real accountability, The delay isn’t just inconvenient for you; it can cost your employer too.
You should always compare if details in Form 16 match with those in Form 26AS. This will help you verify whether the employer has accurately reported TDS details or not.
Lastly, let’s look at a few FAQs regarding Form 16.
FAQs on Form 16
1. What is the password to open Form 16 PDF?
Form 16 can be opened using the password in specified format i.e. first five characters of PAN in capital letters followed by your date of birth in DDMMYYYY format.
2. Will I get Form 16 even if my employer has not deducted TDS?
If an employee’s income does not exceed the basic exemption limit, they will not need to have Tax Deducted at Source (TDS). Hence, the company is not obligated to provide Form 16 to the employee in this case. However, you can still request your employer to issue Form 16 Part-B to get a detailed breakdown of your salary and contains details of the breakup of salary and deductions claimed.
3. I have changed jobs during the year, how can I file ITR?
You will have to ask each of your employers for a Form 16 separately. And then cumulative information from those Form 16s will be used for filing the ITR. On Quicko, we allow you to upload multiple Form 16s and autofill data to file your ITR easily.
This was all about Form 16, hope this helps!
