whether income Tax paid by you has reached Income tax office,check it out?
You may be thinking that with the end of the financial year, your tax troubles are done with. Before you heave a sigh of relief, do check whether the tax deducted from your income has been considered as paid by the income tax department. If the tax has not been credited to your name and PAN number, your tax problems may have just begun.All the taxes paid by a taxpayer in a financial year are mentioned in the annual tax statement, or the Form 26 AS. This includes the tax deducted at source (TDS) on salary, bank interest and any consultancy payments from clients as well as the taxes paid directly by the individual. Details of the company or bank that deducted the tax and its tax deduction account number (TAN) are mentioned in the form. Any tax refund due to the taxpayer is also mentioned.However, there are cases when the TDS is not deposited with the government. "In many cases employers, professionals or contractors don't deposit the tax even though they deduct TDS from the payment," says Ameet Patel, tax partner, Sudit K Parekh & Co. In other cases, the tax has been deposited but the PAN number is either missing or incorrect. "At the time of uploading details of tax credit or through tax challans, banks sometimes upload incorrect or incomplete information," says Shaunak Dalal, direct tax partner of chartered accountancy firm MZS & Associates. In both instances, the taxpayer is not given the credit for the tax paid. The income tax department says that incorrect PAN or TAN are the most common reasons for a taxpayer not getting credit for the tax deducted from his income.
