[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by psvinay

2. Last year I decided to break away from regular employment, and resigned from the company I worked for 19 years. I am 44yrs old. Gratuity was paid along with the final settlement and after 3 months, I withdrew my full PF balance also. I understand that both PF & Gratuity are fully exempt from IT. Now, how do I show these two items in the returns? I guess I should show them under Exempt Income. But I don't see any specific heads for these two. All I can see are: Interest Income, Dividend Income, Long-term capital gain, Net Agriculture Income AND Others. Should I show my PF & Gratuity under "Others"? Will this be good enough? The Form-16 given to me post resignation DOES NOT include gratuity & PF (I guess that was because they were not taxable).

Thanks in advance..

I had switched jobs and withdrew my PF last year. Didn't show the PF in ITR. I am not sure if that is the right approach, but the filing was done by a tax consultant in the office.

[spookey]

Since my wife and minor child are not earning any income, I believe any interest generated in their account is also clubbed in my income.
Where do I declare these details in the ITR form?

S_U_N,

1) I don't see any provision in ITR 1 to club your wife's and child's income. I think you should use ITR 2 where there is a provision to club your wife's and child's income. check ITR -2 for schedule SPI. You can show it there.

2) NHAI tax free bond income - show under Exempt Income - Interest in ITR2 and IFCI non tax free add with your other income i.e saving bank account interest.

If you are confused please consult a CA or tax consultant. I am neither of them

[spookey]

Hi Psvinay,

1. While calculating Short term capital gains from securities, what are considered as expenses? STT paid during the Buy & Sell transactions? or Brokerage paid also can be included? I am using the https://myitreturn.com site to file my returns. STCG section of this portal asks for expenses incurred during the sell transaction, but not in the Buy transaction. Bit confused about this.

Please check contract notes provided by your broker . All the charges mentioned there like stamp duty, turnover charges , brokerage and STT are considered as expense.

2)

Should I show my PF & Gratuity under "Others"? Will this be good enough? The Form-16 given to me post resignation DOES NOT include gratuity & PF (I guess that was because they were not taxable).

Yes you can show them under Others in Exempt Income section. Gratuity is tax free upto Rs Ten Lakhs , beyond that it is taxable. PF is ofcourse tax free (no limit).

[santhoshs]

Originally Posted by spookey

Hi Psvinay,



Please check contract notes provided by your broker . All the charges mentioned there like stamp duty, turnover charges , brokerage and STT are considered as expense..

STT cannot be claimed as expense. You may claim other charges in the Contract Note.

[girishglg]

A colleague of mine worked for 4 months in Australia on a project and paid locally. He is back home under regular salary.

Should he pay both Aus and local taxes. If paid Aus tax is already paid should he pay again?

[carbookie]

Originally Posted by girishglg

A colleague of mine worked for 4 months in Australia on a project and paid locally. He is back home under regular salary.

Should he pay both Aus and local taxes. If paid Aus tax is already paid should he pay again?

Australian salary should be added to Indian salary while filing taxes. The rebate can be claimed on the Australian tax already paid.

[thoma]

A bit off-topic. But then I thought it will be good to share here.

There is an income tax return spam mail doing the rounds. The link in the mail will take you to a phishing site. Here is the mail I got.

from: Income Tax Department.
subject: Re:Tax Refunds Notification ..

Dear Valued Taxpayer,

We regret to inform you that your tax refund request was NOT successfully processed. This is due to the submission of inaccurate/incorrect account particulars.

However, after the last account audit, the total tax excesses refundable to you is now 39,910.00 INR. Please follow the reference below to re-submit a refund request and this time, endeavor to input your Information correctly to avoid further delay in the remittance of your tax refunds into your account

CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT A REFUND REQUEST

Note: Your request will be processed within TEN (10) working days.

We appreciate your sparing the time to learn about our tax refunds. It's one extra way Income tax unit can make your tax payment experience better.

Income tax unit
Ministry of finance,
lndia.

[faustus77]

Hi everybody
This is some great news for people who dont need to go into the intricacies of filing returns.
Today's page 13 of Times of India has the following news that you can call a tax return preparer to your home and the maximum you have to pay is rs 250.

Article Window
Hope this makes life easier for quite a lot of us.
Regards

[Vizay]

Hi Gurus,

What can be claimed newly at the time of tax filing (without declaring to employers which means they don't appear in Form -16)
I know any items under 80C or 80D can be claimed at the time of filing tax returns without a need for Form 16 carrying the same information.

But can one claim things like HRA, LTA, Medical allowance without having the same accounted/shown as part of Form 16?

Query from many of my team members, pls help.

[Warwithwheels]

Originally Posted by Vizay

Hi Gurus,

What can be claimed newly at the time of tax filing (without declaring to employers which means they don't appear in Form -16)
I know any items under 80C or 80D can be claimed at the time of filing tax returns without a need for Form 16 carrying the same information.

But can one claim things like HRA, LTA, Medical allowance without having the same accounted/shown as part of Form 16?

Query from many of my team members, pls help.

You mean to say that your form 16 shows the total allowances without breaking it up into HRA, LTA etc? If that is the case, you can very well go ahead and do that provided your offer letter or some other document substantiates such break up.

BTW.... your employer is required to give such break up in the form 16.

[hellmet]

I'll be receiving a small amount as bonus in the coming weeks from my company. I heard it is taxed at source. Can someone tell me if I can save some or all of the tax on this bonus?

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by hellmet

I'll be receiving a small amount as bonus in the coming weeks from my company. I heard it is taxed at source. Can someone tell me if I can save some or all of the tax on this bonus?

No chance of saving it unless it is paid in cash and that will not happen at a Corporate.
Bonuses, Awards etc are all taxed at the normal rate of tax that you are liable for, depending on your income.
For most people in the higher brackets it is 33-34%.

It is really horrible for salaried people because the Performance Bonus which is usually paid up at the end of a year based on good work done etc, is usually a substantial amount. To lose 33% of that to the wicked tax man is iniquitous to say the least. My heart really goes out to all who face this issue.

Paying taxes is fine, if like abroad, you get something decent back for the money you pay out. Not the rubbish that is meted out to us here.

Sorry boss, but successive FM's here in India have completely burned the salaried and declared income classes to a crisp. The rest of the Political classes have simply stomped on the ashes.

Here it is best to be a consultant or an entrepreneur or an agriculturist if one wants to be legal and decent and yet save some taxes. It cannot be done by being a salaried individual. Else, one has to be a nasty politico or goon or real estate devil who anyway don't pay tax at all.

It is time for a revolution and for the regular common men to rise like the Phoenix and clean up this country by putting all these chaps to the fire and the sword!
Else, simply Quit India and buzz off to NZ or the Tierra Del Fuego where you might be left in peace to lick the wounds inflicted on you in India!

[S_U_N]

@shankar.balan: The community will vote for you if you decide to enter politics.

Back on topic, I tried using myITreturns and taxspanner along with taxshax.
Taxshax is probably doing things the right way (you need to enter each and every item of income along with all other details, like date, etc.
However, the interface and user experience was not upto the mark. The process is laborious and the session times out and you lose some of the data entry work done.
I finally gave up and tried myITreturns.
This is just the opposite and extremely simple.
However this is unsuitable if you were to calculate interest payable u/s 234, for instance.
You will have to use external calculator to do so.
Since I wanted a tax professional to assist me, I then selected taxspanner and found that to be good balance between the two.
At Rs. 449, I think they did a better job than my previous accountant who charged us Rs. 750.
When I reviewed returns from last two-three years, I realized that there are some mistakes made by the accountant.
For instance, taxable bond was put in as taxfree bond. Also PPF interest was not declared for reporting and so on..

Did a lot of cleanup and streamlining of finance documents this year in the process of computing income.
Gained quite a lot of knowledge this year. Hopefully next year, I should be able to file without any assistance.

[LonelyPlanet]

This is a refund case with a slight twist.

The bank a/c number that needs to be filled for e-credit of refund was entered wrongly while filing the return.
IT dept says that the refund was credited (to the wrong a/c ). Dont they put redundant check like the name along with number like for an a/c payee cheque ?

What can be done to rectify the mistake at my end ?

[Su-47]

This years ITR-2 has a section to declare foreign assets.

I understand that a lot of US-MNCs grant stocks to employees in India (stock-grants and/or stock-purchase via salary deductions). Does one need to declare these as foreign assets?

Cheers,
Su-47