13 Documents Required For Income Tax Return Filing – FY2021-22 / AY 2022-23

Income Tax filing is round the year and most people dread this time. They find the entire process very confusing /cumbersome and hence reach out to agents for help. In this article, I will tell you the 13 documents required for Income Tax Return (ITR) Filing. If you have these documents, your Income Tax Filing for FY2021-22 / AY2022-23 will become very easy.

1. Annual Information Statement / Taxpayer Information Summary

In current assessment year (FY2021-22 / AY2022-23), government has introduced a new form which has to be referred to while filing income tax. This new form is known as AIS (Annual Information Statement) and TIS (Tax Information Summary). Basic idea is to capture all your information from different sources into one document.

AIS captures all the data related to income you have received while TIS captures the details of all taxes you have paid so far. Together, these two constitute your new Form 26AS (sort of).

Refer to the below video I had created explaining AIS and TIL along with the steps to download them

Video 1 – AIS / TIS Explained in Detail

Hence, download AIS and TIS from Income Tax portal before you start.

2. Form 16, 16A, 16B, 16C

Over years, Form 16 has been the main document for income tax filing for most of the salaried individuals. This is the form giving us all the details needed to file taxes making it a mandatory document to have before starting the process.

Form 16A is issued by tax deducter for tax deduction against bank interest, professional fees, commission, dividend etc.

Form 16B can be obtained if you have sold a property or land in current assessment year (previous financial year FY2021-22). Buyer is expected to deduct the tax at source and provide you certificate in Form 16B format.

Similarly, if you have rented your house and tenant is paying you over 50K per month as rent, then as per the rule, he/she has to deduct tax from annual rent paid and issue you Form 16C .

3. Capital Gain Statement

If you trade in stocks, bonds, mutual funds or have made capital gain by selling land or property, then you have to pay taxes on capital gain.

As per the rules, for capital gains arising from equity based trading, long term profit upto 1L is exempted from tax. But any profit above 1 year will be taxed at 10%. Short term profit are taxed at 15% without any exemption. Similarly, all debt based transactions are taxed as per tax slab if sold before 3 years and at 20% after indexation if sold after 3 years.

Hence, ensure that you have the capital gains statement for the stocks/mutual funds you purchased/sold during the financial year. Check if statements have indexed costs and grandfathered cost details as well if they were purchased before 1st Feb 2018. If not, find out those details.

Similarly, have relevant documents / information related to property purchase/sell – cost of acquisition, indexed cost, selling price, profits, taxes paid, details of buyer/seller, date of buy/sell etc.

Note – From FY2021-22 onwards, you will also be taxed on Virtual assets. So if you have transacted in bitcoins, crypto currencies, NFTs etc, you will need those details to be furnished.

4. Form 26AS

As you know, Form 26AS was the go-to document to check what all taxes were deducted and credited against your PAN. Recently, AIS and TIS have been introduced which may reduce dependency on Form 26AS in future. But still, it is a useful document to have for now.

5. Previous Year IT Returns

Previous year IT Returns are needed to check if there are any Brought Forward Losses which can be adjusted against this year profits. This way, your net tax outgo can be reduced. While at it, also remember to check if any tax refund related interest had been credited on your account in previous financial year. This interest will have to be declared as income and is taxable.

6. Bank Interest Statements

Did you know that you can interest received in your bank account is taxable? Yes! All the interest earned from any source – FD, RD, banks, post office, other financial institutions etc – is taxable.

Only relief is on the interest earned from Bank Savings Account. If the total of interest received across all your bank accounts (savings account only) is above 10K, you will have to pay the tax. Interest upto 10K on savings account is exempted under Section 80TTA of Old Tax Regime but you still have to declare it.

Note – This tax deduction under 80TTA is not available on New Tax Regime

So you will have to add up all the interest credited across all your bank accounts before starting process of filing Income Tax Returns.

7. Dividend Payout Statements

Until FY2019-20, you did not have to pay taxes on dividends as the company issuing dividends used to take care of taxes.

However, amendments were made to the rule and now, any dividends paid by stocks or mutual funds are taxable. Income from these have to be declared under Income From Other Sources section while filing your tax returns. And taxes have to be paid as per the tax slabs.

Hence ,ensure you have the dividend payout details for entire financial year before starting.

8. Donations / Contributions Receipts

Donations / Contributions to political parties, scientific research, flood and drought relief, temple trust, army welfare etc are tax exempted under both new and old tax regime. However, in most cases, these are not captured in Form 16 issued by the employer.

So next time you sit to file your Income Tax, ensure you have details of these contributions with you to be able to avail tax deduction.

9. Advance Tax / Self-Assessment Tax Challan Documents

If you have earned income from other sources or have done transactions like selling of house, winning a lottery etc then you will need to pay tax on this income.

Check if this income is credited to your account after tax deduction at source or not. If tax is already deducted at source, it should reflect in your TIS statement. If tax is not deducted at source, then you have to pay advance tax or self assessment tax on it.

Once the tax is paid, you need to keep the challan details carefully as they will be required during tax filing.

10. Tax Exemption Related Proofs If Opting For Old Regime

If you are still opting Old Tax Regime, then you should have all the tax exemption related proofs/documents with you while filing your tax returns (unless all these are already captured in your Form 16). So keep your 80C, 80D, NPS, Home Loan Interest Certificates handy when you sit for tax filing.

11. Details of Income from Other Sources

If you have multiple sources of income, and not everyone issues Form 16, then it is better to have the details of how much money you have earned from each source in the financial year. The total income you get from all sources will be used as the basis to identify your tax slab and tax calculations.

On top of this, you also have to report few extra income like agriculture income, pension, gratuity etc which are tax exempted.

Hence, ensure you have details of income from other sources as one of the documents required for filing Income tax returns.

12. Details of Investment in Unlisted Shares

As part of filing Income tax returns, you also have to declare details of transactions done in unlisted shares. For this, you will need information related to following fields as requested in ITR-2:

Name of Company whose shares have been purchase
Type of company – Domestic / Foreign
PAN of company
Number of shares purchased in previous FY along with cost of acquisition
Details of shares purchased and sold in current FY and sold in current FY
- Purchase price / Selling price for resale buy/sell
- Face value, issue price for fresh issue stock purchase

13. EPF Contribution Details

If you are doing voluntary contributions in your Employee Provident Fund (EPF) account, and your total contribution exceeds 2.5LPA, then you will have to pay tax on interest earned. So you should have this information readily available before starting.