Understanding Form 16 and Form 16A
What I, as an ordinary taxpayer, understand from this order:
Form 16 is your salary TDS certificate. If your income from salary for the financial year is more than the minimum exemption limit of Rs 2,50,000, your employer is required by the Income Tax Act to deduct TDS on your salary and deposit it with the government.
Form 16A: TDS Certificate for Non-Salary Income
Form 16A is also a TDS Certificate, applicable for income other than salary income. All details that are there in Form 16A are available on Form 26AS.
Importance of Declaring All Income
Suppose you have declared some amount as total income but omitted to include some interest income which has been included in Form 26AS, the IT department can ask for clarifications, and if not satisfied, can make adjustments and ask you to pay tax within a particular period of time.
Impact of Computerization on Income Records
Basically, with computerization having taken place, all incomes get recorded—be it TDS on FD or not mentioning SB interest. Share transactions are cross-checked by IT with the NSDL database using PAN.
It becomes incumbent on every taxpayer to be very careful to declare all his income from various sources.