Filing IT return with multiple Form 16s

Stuck with multiple Form 16s from a number of employers you switched during the course of a financial year and don't know how to file your income tax return? Here's help

Every salaried person must obtain Form 16 from the employer before the end of a financial year. Form 16 contains the details of salary earned by the employee and tax deducted from it by the employer. In other words, it can be explained as the details of tax deducted by the employer on behalf of an employee.

Form 16 is certificate of deduction of tax at source under section 203 of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Employers provide TDS certificate to the employees on Form 16.

If the employer has not deducted any tax at source, then it is not compulsory for the employer to issue Form 16.

Who is eligible to file ITR-1/Sahaj?

• Individual with salaried or pension income
• Income from house property
• Income from other sources including FDs interest rate and excluding speculation income
• Where income of spouse or minor is clubbed with assesse

Different ways to file IT return

• Paper return at local IT office
• Electronic return using digital signature
• Electronic return along with submission of verification data in Form ITR-V
• Bar coded return

The last date to submit Income Tax return for a salaried employee is July 31, 2012. Get the Form 16 from all employers before calculating the tax. Once you collect all the relevant details to file the return start working in a piece of paper as following:

• Calculate income from salary/pension: Total of amount in all the Form 16s
• Calculate income from other sources
• Calculate amount for 80C, 80D, 80CCC etc: Include the item here even if not included in any of the issued Form 16.

Under what condition a person holds multiple Form-16s?

There may be cases when a person holds multiple Form 16. Such conditions may arise in following two situations, when: 

• A person switches a job in the same financial year
• A person is working with multiple employers simultaneously

Multiple Form 16 and IT return

It's quite simple to file IT return when someone holds multiple Form 16s. One should keep following points in mind as per the situation:

Multiple Form 16 due to job switch

The employee should either declare the details of past Form 16s to the new employer to calculate the tax liability considering the previous job details or if the employee wants secrecy, then he can mention the consolidated income of all the Form 16 at the time of filing IT return. In any case Form 16 from all the employers would be required.

Multiple Form 16s due to multiple jobs at a time

In this case, an employee can simply file the consolidated income at the time of filing IT return to take into account all the jobs s/he is involved in.

Finally, it is necessary to note here that a consolidated Form 16 is irrelevant because of different TAN numbers of the employers. So employees must hold Form 16s separately from all the employers. While filling the return employees have to aggregate total salary (i.e. of both the company & the result will be your tax paid or refundable as per the condition while setting off the TDS).

If the employee has forgotten to mention the significant detail to its employer under Form 16 details, then s/he can include it at the time of filing return and provide the relevant documents of proof to the current employer for records.

One must check the Form 16 carefully to eliminate the chances of mistakes in PAN no, TAN No and address details, and such.