Income Tax Return Filing: Learn to file ITR-1 or 'Sahaj' form

While filing your Income Tax return (ITR), taxpayers must pick the right form. If you submit a wrong form, then the Income Tax department will call the return as 'defective', and a revised return will have to be filed.

Persons whose total income for the financial year 2018-19 does not exceed Rs 50 lakh should file form ITR-1 or 'Sahaj'. A simplified one page form, can be filed by individuals having income from either of the sources -- salary, one house property (not including cases where loss is brought forward from previous years), other sources (apart from winning from lottery and income from racehorses), and agricultural income up to Rs 5,000 (not for an individual who is either director in a company or has invested in unlisted equity shares).

If the assessee is adding the income of his/her spouse or child, then the total income must fall within the above specifications.

Documents compulsory for filing ITR-1:

 Permanent account number (PAN)

 Aadhaar card

 Form 16 issued by the employer

 Form 26AS from TRACES

Structure of ITR-1: ITR-1 form is divided into these following parts:

 Part A includes general information like PAN, name, date of birth, and Aadhaar number.

 Part B - Gross total income

 Part C - Deductions and total taxable income

 Part D - Computation of tax payable

 Part E - Other information (details of all bank accounts held by you in India)

 Schedule IT gives detail of advance tax and self-assessment tax payments.

 Schedule TDS offer detail of TDS/TCS.

Electronic filing of ITR:

 Log in to the e-filing portal of the Income Tax department (www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in)

 If you are using it for the first time, you need to register with your PAN – with your user ID and password.

 Click on the 'income tax return' page. Select assessment year, ITR form and submission code.

 One option you will have is to download the form as an Excel utility from the e-filing website, fill in the required information, generate an XML file and then upload it.

 The other option is you can also select the 'Prepare and submit online' option and then click on pre-filled fields.

 Send the acknowledgement slip of the return to the I-T department's Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) office in Bangalore within 120 days of e-filing. You can also e-verify your return.

Offline filing of ITR-1:

Citizens who are aged 80 years or above or individuals/HUFs whose income does not exceed Rs 5 lakh and not claim any refund in the return of income can file the IT return offline in paper form. You need to file the ITR in physical paper form and get an acknowledgement slip from the I-T department while submitting.

If the return is done offline and furnished in paper form, the acknowledgement/ITR-V should be duly filed.