The Income-Tax Act lays down that TDS certificate must be issued by the employer, once a year, on or before May 31 of the financial year immediately following the financial year in which tax is deducted.  If an employer fails to provide you with a Form 16 after having deducted TDS ­ the minimum penalty that the employer will pay is `100 for every day the default continues.

The reason for not issuing Form 16 could be many . The company might be in trouble and may not have deposited your taxes at all or the HR department may be just lazy . Whatever may be the case, there is no point running after your employer anymore since the deadline is close. You might start collecting the alternate documents that will help you calculate your tax liability and file returns. This will take some time especially if you are planning to file your returns yourself.

Start by familiarising yourself with the different ITR forms and the correct form for you. Most of the salaried class will be filing an ITR 1 , 2 or 2A. Form 3, 4 and 4A are for people with income from professional practice or business. If you are using the government filing site, you will have to choose and download the correct ITR.

The form-selection process is automated if you are filing through an online-filing platform. Next step is to get all the documents ready to calculate your taxable income.

Declaring your taxable income:

In absence of Form 16, your payslip is the second-best resource to calculate your income from salary . Remember to deduct the non-taxable heads such as HRA, LTA and other reimbursements from total income. If you are filing ITR2A, ITR-2 and ITR-4, you will have to provide a detailed salary schedule with a break-up of allowances that are exempt from tax along with value of perquisites. Refer to your appointment letter that gives a break-up of your CTC for details.

Your income should include earnings from other sources too. Interest income can be easily retrieved from your TDS certificates from bank or Form 26AS. Do not forget to declare rental income, capital gains, income from savings bank account, cash gifts above `50,000 received from a non-relative and even income exempted from tax such as dividend income.

Match your TDS numbers:

Form 26AS is the best source to cross-check 26AS is the best source to cross-check your entries. Your income from all the sources (including interest income where you had submitted a Form 15GH), tax deducted at source and any high-value transactions and sale of immovable property are all reflected in Form 26AS. An advance tax paid needs to be mentioned in the ITR as well. Verify your tax payment challan(s) numbers with the figures in Part D of Form 26AS.

Verifying all the details as per the Form 26AS is a must as many have been getting notices from the department recently where the ITR filed by the taxpayer does not match with the information available in the form.

Recheck the TDS figures carefully , if your employer is in some financial trouble. Cross-check the TAN num bers to know verify the employer and the corresponding TDS. There have been cases where the employer had deducted TDS from your salary but the same was not deposited with the government. The onus of filing correct returns is on the taxpayer.

If the employer has deducted tax, it must show up in your Form 26AS. If it does not, either your PAN was not correctly mentioned or the employer did not deposit the TDS. If it is the latter and the employer refuses make corrections you may have to pay tax to the government on your income yourself and later on claim from your employer. Another solution can be approaching your jurisdictional TDS Commissioner.

We have seen examples wherein the company immediately deposited TDS and issued Form 16 upon receipt of notice from the tax department. Nondeposit of TDS is a serious offence and can result in prosecution and rigorous imprisonment.

Claim the correct deductions:

If you were diligent in declaring your investments during January and February , you are perhaps well-organised already . Most of your deductions under Section 80C such as insurance premiums, mutual fund investments, PPF contribution, children's school tuition fee, are easily traceable.

Just get the investment proofs, add the numbers and you can fill the aggre the numbers and you can fill the aggregate as deduction under Section 80C.Remember to include your EPF contributions and investment made in NPS under Section 80C too. You can get your EPF contributions in your EPFO statement. If the employer has not provided one, just go online. All you need is account number and establishment code, which are usually mentioned at the top of your salary slip. You will also have to key-in the state where the employers' EPF trust is registered.

Your NPS contributions will be under two sections. Your contributions as an employee gets deduction under Section 80CCD(1), which comes under the overall `1.5 lakh limit under Section 80C. This year onwards, you can claim an additional 50,000 deduction under Section 80CCD(1b) for individual contribution, which includes any contribution made as an employee. If you contributed `50,000 or more towards NPS via salary deductions, maximise the tax benefits under both Section 80C and Section 80CCD(1b). Claim the full `50,000 under the new section first and then adjust the residual to achieve total tax deduction of `2 lakh. The contributions towards NPS by your employer is deductible under Section 80CCD(2).

If you have a home loan, principal repayments will also be added under Section 80C. Consult the loan certificate to know the break-up between your principal and interest payments.