Income Tax Return and Investment : FIve Things to Do Before March 31, 2016

Income Tax Return and Investment : 

5 Things to Do Before March End

From Apna Plan

Things to do Before Financial Year End

Its just two weeks before the financial year 2015-16 ends and so we present you with five things you should do before this Financial Year ends.

(1.) File Pending Income Tax Return..!

Ideally you should have filed your income tax return for FY 2014-15 (AY 2015-16) by August 31, 2015. But in case you have not filed it by now, do it before March 31, 2016. 

You should be careful while filing your IT returns because this can not be revised on a later date. 

Also if there is tax due, you will need to pay penalty of 1% per month from April 2015 till date.

Also in case you have even been lazier or very busy & not filed your returns for FY 2013-14 (AY 2014-15); March 31, 2016 is the last day to file that IT return. 

In case you do not file it by that date, you might face a penalty of Rs 5,000 (in case income is above taxable limit) by IT department. 

Also if you had any tax due you would need to pay 1% penalty per month for non-payment of advance tax as well as for delay in filing of income tax return each.

(2) Pay Advance Tax..!

In case you are salaried and have no other income, in all cases you might not worry about advance taxes. But, if you do have other income like interest on fixed deposits, unpaid taxes (after TDS) on which exceed Rs. 10,000 you should pay your advance taxes.

In case you do not do so you would need to pay penalty of 1% on outstanding advance taxes. This is also true in case you have taxable capital gains from sale of house/ mutual funds/ bonds etc.

You need not pay advance tax in case you are senior citizen (>= 60 years of age) and not engaged in any business or professional activity.

(3). Make your minimum contribution to PPF, NPS, SSA accounts:

If you have PPF / Sukanya Samriddhi Account (SSA) account you need to contribute at least Rs. 500 / Rs. 1,000 per financial year to avoid account being classified as dormant. 

You can make the account active you would need to pay a penalty of Rs. 100 and contribution of Rs. 500 for each year of missed payments.

In case of NPS accounts too, you need to deposit at least Rs. 6,000 every financial year. 

In case you have not done it till now go ahead and do it as non-payment leads to account being classified as “frozen”. You can make the account active by paying a penalty of Rs 100 and depositing Rs. 500 as one installment.

Though the penalty is not high in both the cases but it would lead to inconvenience and might require some documentation and visit to respective institutions. So make sure you have paid the minimum amount in NPS, PPF and SSA.

(4.) Verify all your tax saving options are Exhausted

Check and recheck you have maxed your limit for tax saving investments. To check if you have used all the tax saving options available. 

There are still 2 weeks to go and you would not be able to claim tax benefit on investments made after March for this financial year.

(5.) Submit your Medical / LTA Reimbursement Bills

In case you are salaried you should have submitted your bills to claim Medical reimbursement (of Rs. 15,000), LTA reimbursement and Car maintenance expenses to your employer. It’s not possible to claim these exemptions while filing Tax returns.

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