How to tackle tax woes of the salaried

Arnav Pandya

There are several occasions when an individual could receive a notice from the tax department asking for some additional tax to be paid which can result in a perplexing situation. This is especially perplexing when the person is a salaried individual and there have been several such cases in recent times so the individual has to be prepared for a situation like this. There are several conditions that would have to be seen and here is a look at them so that the salaried individual would be able to tackle the position as and when this arises.

Salaried features:There are a few specific conditions related to a salaried individual that has to be taken into consideration. The first one is that the person would have most of the income coming in from salaries so the tax on this would have been deducted at source by the employer at the time of payment of the salary. Now if there is additional income on which the tax has not been paid then this would have to be paid so this is a factor that has to be considered. The presence of other income and whether the tax on this has been paid or not is the most important detail that will play a role in the entire tackling of the demand that has been raised by the tax department.

Checking the basics:An important thing to check for the individual salaried taxpayer is whether the details that are mentioned at the time of the raising of the tax demand are valid. This will require that the individual will have to look at the working that the tax department has provided at the time of the raising of the demand and then see where there is a difference between their own working and what the tax authorities have given. There are two situations that can arise here. The first is that there is a mistake on the part of the individual so in this case there is no other option but to pay the additional amount demanded and complete the process. The other situation is where there is a mistake in the working and this can happen due to some software problem that has arisen at the end of the tax department.

Common mistake:At the same time the salaried should also look around to see whether there are other people who are in the same position as them. This is important as there could be a situation that the tax department has wrongly sent out the notice because of some software error. This has happened in recent times and hence an initial check is required to ensure that this kind of position is actually ruled out. If this is the case then the individual can file a rectification request with the tax authorities pointing out the area where the mistake has been made and the actual or the correct situation which will ensure that the position is shown normally and properly.

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Arnav Pandya

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Completion of process:If the mistake was on the part of the salaried tax payer then they should ensure that the required amount of tax has been paid and once this is done they should also check that it is reflected properly in the tax department records. This will ensure that the required process is completed properly. At the same time it will also ensure that there are no problems that arise in the future and that the interest component does not climb any further on the payments to be made. The details should also be noted in the records of the individual.