Finance Buddy

Every salaried employee who has an  HRA component  in salary and who wants to claim house rent allowance ( HRA ) income  tax  benefits need to submit the  PAN  number of the landlord if the annual rent is above Rs 1 lakh. Failing to submit the landlord's PAN to your employer for claiming  rent HRA tax exemption , will result in losing the tax exemption. Also submitting a false PAN number of landlords will result in you getting a tax notice and also losing the HRA tax exemption altogether. Earlier, the online  ITR  form or its utility did not have field to give details regarding the HRA. However, it has changed now, the  income tax department  has revised the utility, and it now requires taxpayers to give more details of the HRA claim by salaried employees. So does this mean that you have to give the landlord’s PAN card details while filing ITR? Read below to know more about the importance of landlord’s PAN for your  rent HRA ...

Some taxpayers underreport income or inflate deductions in order to save money that goes to the government. But experts warn that this is a high-stakes gamble in today’s data-driven tax environment. With the Income Tax Department now armed with sophisticated tools and deep access to financial information, from your bank transactions and property deals to your stock market activity, there’s little room to hide.   Taxman’s eyes everywhere: What the department already knows   “The Income Tax Department gets financial data from multiple channels, banks, mutual funds, employers, registrars, and more,” says Suresh Surana, charter accountant.   This includes: TDS/TCS details from Form 24Q/26Q   High-value transactions under the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT)   Integrated PAN-linked records from property sales, share investments, and foreign remittances   Salary, rent, capital gains, and GST data through the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Form 2...

For some salaried taxpayers , the tax return season may feel like a chore, yet it is also one of the few chances to get some money back, especially if too much tax was deducted over the year. With the ITR filing window now open for ITR 1 and ITR 4, this is a crucial time for salaried employees to know how they can maximise their refunds this year. Not always but sometimes there’s a real possibility that you have overpaid taxes, without even realising it. This usually happens when your employer deducts more tax than required or when you forget to account for deductions that never made it into your Form 16. It could be rent receipts you didn’t submit on time, a last-minute ELSS investment, or home loan interest that didn’t get factored in. Whatever the case, filing your return is how you claim that excess tax back. What Triggers a Refund? There are a few common scenarios where salaried people end up paying more tax than necessary: You have changed jobs during the year and both ...