If you are not
comfortable E-filing on your own, there are many tax-filing websites, known as
e-return intermediaries which will handhold you through the process, usually
for a fee.
Portals such as www.taxsmile.com,
www.taxspanner.com, www.cleartax.in, www.myitreturn.com, and
www.easyitfiling.com provide various e-filing services.
These range from
screen-based help to do the filing yourself, to just uploading Form 16, with
the portal taking care of the rest. Most of these portals also offer various
value-added services.
The higher the
service and package level, the higher the charge. For instance, on
taxsmile.com, you can opt for a do-it-yourself mode (where interactive
question-answer screens guide you in the calculation & filing process) or /
the do-it-for-me mode (where you just upload your Form 16 and the website
prepares your tax calculation which you need to review and then file).
Do it yourself on
taxsmile.com will cost you Rs. 250 when you are ready to file (free for those
with income up to Rs. 5 lakh), while do-it-for me entails a charge of Rs. 500.
Besides these, the
website offers services such as tax credit verification, ITR-V submission
(which all e-filers except those having digital signatures must do), refund
tracking, a document-storage vault and tax history for charges from Rs. 100 to
Rs. 300.
Cleartax.in offers
self e-filing (free of charge) with online tutorials, and also CA-assisted
e-filing for different combinations of income sources (charges vary from Rs.
499 to Rs. 1500).
For women &
senior citizens, the portal offers its e-filing services free of charge. It
also has a gold service (Rs.2100 a year), which provides tax planning along
with tax filing.
Taxspanner.com offers
a do-it-yourself tax filing service (Rs. 449) and a CA-assisted service (Rs.
699) for salaried taxpayers. It also has filing services for those with
investment income along with salaries (Rs. 749 in the do-it-yourself mode
and Rs.1249 in the assisted mode), and
other categories of taxpayers too.
Besides, it has
full-year packages to help minimise the tax outgo, and also packages which
entail follow-ups with the tax department and tax solutions for foreign income.
Charges vary from Rs.
550 to Rs. 4499. If you decide to file your return through an e-return
intermediary, check whether it has has adequate safeguards to keep your
personal information secure and confidential. Says Rakesh Nangia of Nangia
& Company, a CA firm, “It is advisable to check that the online portal is
an authorised e-return intermediary.
The tax department
authorises these portals and prescribes a number of features necessary for
compliance.”
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