Additional taxes may become payable due to deduction of insufficient TDS or when interest income or income from some other sources are added to main source of income.

In case of insufficient or no tax is deducted at source (TDS), individuals need to pay the deficit amount themselves to avoid getting query and/or notice from the Income Tax Department. Such situations of lower TDS may occur when an employee switches his/her job during a financial year and fails to collect the income certificate from the old employer and/or submit it to the new employer, resulting in lower tax calculation for the remaining period of the financial year, as income for part of the year is considered as income for the entire year.

Additional taxes may also become payable when interest income from savings account(s) and/or fixed deposit (FD) account(s) as well as income from some other sources are added to main source of income.

In case the tax on total taxable income is more than total TDS, it will show ‘Tax Payable’ while filing Income Tax Return (ITR), while there will be refund in case TDS is more than actual tax payable. While submitting ITR with tax refundable is fine, one should never submit ITR with the tax payable, which will most likely attract query and notice from the I-T Department.

In case tax is payable at the time of filing ITR, you should first pay the amount of tax payable through the Challan ITNS-280 and provide the details of the Challan in the ITR to ensure that there is no tax payable on the date of filing the return.

Apart from individuals, companies also use Challan ITNS-280 for payment of Advance tax, Self-Assessment tax, Tax on Regular Assessment, Surtax, Tax on Distributed Profits of Domestic Company and Tax on Distributed income to unit holders – as applicable – both online through e-payment and offline at designated branches of banks empaneled with the Income Tax Department.

Income tax assesses eligible for ITR-1 or Sahaj and ITR-4 (earlier ITR-4S or Saral) may use either the option “Prepare and Submit Online” or may use the option of uploading XML file by preparing the return by downloading and using Excel or Java utilities. For other assessees, the only option is to uload XML.

While people having salary income and income from a single house property only are eligible to file ITR-1, small taxpayers having annual income of Rs 2 crore or less and who have opted for taxation under presumptive income scheme under Section 44AD, Section 44ADA and Section 44AE of the IT Act, like – carrying out of any kind of business that involves leasing, renting out or plying of goods carriages etc are eligible to file ITR-4 (earlier ITR-4S).

Steps for paying tax and filing return using the ‘Prepare and Submit Online’ option
Step 1: Select ‘Prepare and Submit Online’ while filing either ITR-1 or ITR-4 (earlier ITR-4S) and fill the details in the portion, which are not pre-filled or modify pre-filled fields, where necessary.

Step 2: In case some tax is payable, a link to e-pay tax will be generated against it. Click on the link to get auto filled Challan ITNS-280.

Step 3: Check the details in the pre-filled ITNS-280 and submit it to desired bank after selecting either ‘Net Banking’ or ‘Debit Card’ option, which will lead you to the bank page.

Step 4: Enter login details and pay the amount.

Step 5: Save the tax paid challan that is generated after successful payment and fill the BSR Code, date, Challan Number and amount at the appropriate place in the ITR.

Step 6: Submit the return after re-checking that there is no tax payable.

All other assessees and even the above-mentioned assessees, if want to, need to download tax utilities and fill all the details after enabling macros, where applicable.

Steps for paying tax and filing return using Excel or Java utility
Step 1: Download the relevant Excel or Java utility of the applicable ITR, enable macro, where applicable, and fill all the relevant fields. After all the information are given, the Excel or Java utility will calculate the tax and compare it with TDS and tax paid details. Check if there is any tax is payable.

Step 2: To pay the tax amount, click on e-pay tax link on efiling site and select “Continue to NSDL Website” option.

Step 3: On the NSDL page, click on ‘Proceed’ under ‘CHALLAN NO./ITNS 280’, which will lead you to the challan page.

Step 4: In the challan page companies have to choose “(0020) Corporation Tax (Companies)” option and individuals have to chose “(0021) Income Tax (Other than Companies)” against “Tax Applicable”.

Step 5: Select the “Type of Payment” from the options (100) Advance Tax; (102) Surtax; (106) Tax on Distributed Profit; (107) Tax on Distributed Income; (300) Self Assessment Tax and (400) Tax on Regular Assessment, whichever applicable.

Mostly, for individual income tax payers, the options would be either (100) Advance Tax, when paid during the financial year or (300) Self Assessment Tax, when paid after the end of financial year.

Step 6: Select either net banking or debit card option and the desired bank against the option, through which the tax will be paid. Point to be noted that tax may be paid through almost all the commercial banks against net banking option, but at present one may choose a bank out of the list of only six banks – viz. Canara Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Indian Bank, Punjan National Bank and State Bank of India – against the debit card option.

Step 7: Once the bank is selected, the taxpayer has to enter his/her PAN and select the Assessment Year for which the tax has to be paid. After that complete address, email ID, mobile number and captcha code are to be filled before proceeding to bank page.

Step 8: After entering login details, re-check the details that come up on the bank page and enter the amount of tax to be paid and proceed for payment.

Step 9: Once the tax challan is generated after payment, fill the BSR Code, date, Challan Number and amount at the appropriate place in the Excel/Java utility.

Step 10: Generate XML after re-checking that no tax is payable.

Step 11: Select the XML file for uploading while submitting the return after logging in to the efiling site.

All the assessees have to verify the return either online through Aadhaar-based OTP, EVC or by sending the signed ITR Acknowledgement (ITR-V) to the income tax CPC office at Bengaluru, to complete the ITR filing process.