E-filing of income tax returns: How to do it

It is the month of July and filing income tax returns is one of the most important things in your to-do list for the month.

Electronic filing (or e-filing) of returns is gaining traction day by day. It is an easy, efficient and eco-friendly mode of filing tax returns.

The Centralized Processing Center of the Income Tax Department at Bangalore, which was established to mass-process Income Tax Returns, said as on June 30, it had processed over 66.1 lakh e-filed returns of assessment year (AY) 2010-11 - in all categories of ITRs, including corporate returns and generated refunds in over 25.1 lakh cases.

How e-filing benefits you

Besides refunds were reprocessed for 14,820 cases of AY2010-11 and 51,558 cases pertaining to AY2009-10.

E-filing via the I-T department's site is free of cost. While there are some other sites which offer e-filing for free, most sites still charge money for the same. Many old timers, used to manually filing income tax returns, are however, still queuing up outside counters to submit their forms.

Here's a list of smart ways to save tax

Many believe filing via the internet makes you susceptible to scrutiny from the taxmen. But, this is far from reality. Income tax returns are scrutinised at random - with nothing to do with how they are filed, manual or online.

Instead, e-filing portals reduce the chances of errors because the tax is calculated as you fill in the form.

E-filed returns can also be revised in case of an error.

You don't need a digital signature to be able to e-file tax return. A duly signed ITR-V form should be mailed to "Income Tax Department - CPC, Post Bag No - 1, Electronic City Post Office, Bengaluru - 560100, Karnataka," within 120 days of transmitting the data electronically.