How to File a Correction for Income Tax Return or File Revised Return

Taxpayers must file their tax return with care to avoid any error while filing income tax returns. However, sometimes in haste, they end up making mistakes like unclaimed deductions, income reported incorrectly or any incorrect contact details or the bank account is given for the refund of taxes.

However, if you have filed your return within the due date, you still have an opportunity to rectify it. These errors mainly occur due to un-awareness of the recent changes in tax rules such as if the taxpayer whose income is more than Rs. 50 Lakh per annum from FY-2015-16, then he had to file a declaration of his/her assets and liabilities.

Who is eligible to file revised returns?

If you have submitted your IT returns timely, the most important are that it can be revised. However, for smooth revision process, it is best not to verify a return, especially in online mode. As, once a return is verified, the Income Tax Department begins processing it and it is better to rectify any error when you notice it in order to avoid any penalty under the section 139 (5) of submitting a revised tax return.

“The Act confers that any individual who has filed the original IT returns on or before the due date can file a revised tax return before the expiry of one year by the end or before the completion of a relevant assessment year. From the next Financial Year, AY 2017-18, the tax department has allowed belated returns also that are filed after the due date.

How many times can you revise your return?

A person can revise his tax return any number of times, provided it should be used meagerly as it may increase the chances of return scrutiny, especially if it is resulting in large refunds. For example, if you have filed your tax return for FY 2015-16 on or before 5th August, 2016, then you can file a revised return any number of times up to 31st March 2018.

Under Section 277, if the person has deliberately filed a false return, then he will be liable to imprisonment or may be a penalty of 100-300% of the tax due for concealing the income. It will not be condoned by filing a revised return.

How to file a revised return?

A person can file a revised return by both online or offline mode. If he is filing a revised return more than once then, it is required to give an acknowledgment number and the date of filing related to original IT-return in the revised form.

The IT department provides the 15-digit acknowledgment number if you have filed the original one through any of the e-filers and therefore will be applicable to file the revised return by online.

Remove the omissions, review and check all the mandatory fields, including those where there was no change required before submitting your return.

While filing revision online it must be verified using various methods provided by the IT department like net banking /Aadhaar/One-time Password (OTP).

An individual can also send the offline ITR-V form of return to CPC, Bangalore. An ITR-V is sent as an attached content by IT department to the registered e-mail id of that person after successful completion of IT return online to CPC, Bangalore.

It is always better to file your original I-T return with utmost care, avoiding any error, omission or ignorance. However, the taxpayers can still use the opportunity provided by law to rectify mistakes, if any, by filing a revised return, within a time-frame.

If you are unaware of the process that is important for getting the income tax corrections done then do not panic. With professional help, you can get the corrections done on time and avoid any type of penalization done by the government authorities and departments.