How To Save Tax When You Miss The Income Tax Proof Submission Deadline

Every salaried employee must be familiar with the way they get reminders to submit investment proofs from their employers. Sometimes, you tend to postpone it repeatedly and finally end up missing the income tax proof submission deadline.

Consequently, it will not reflect on your Form 16. It is disappointing to keep paying hefty taxes even after doing your 80C investments and other savings. But you can still save on taxes and get a refund from the income tax department in such cases.

The exemptions and deductions that your employer would have given in your Form 16, if the proofs were submitted can be claimed at the time of e-filing. Let’s take a look at these exemptions & deductions that you can claim even though you are past the deadline for tax proof submission of your employer:

Claim HRA Exemption In Your Return

Did you forget to submit rent receipts to your employer on time? Don’t worry! If you live on rent and have made rent payments, you can claim a deduction on the House Rent Allowance at the time of filing your return. All you need is your rent receipts and PAN of your landlord (where rent payments are more than Rs 1,00,000 per annum). Here is our HRA calculator you can use to find out how much HRA will be exempt from tax. This calculator is built into clear tax under the salary section. The exempt HRA is calculated and reduced from the taxable salary.

Claim Deductions Under Section 80C With No Investments

Section 80C allows you to reduce Rs 1,50,000 from your taxable income. You can view the entire list of deductions allowed under Section 80C here.

If you were not able to submit the details of your Section 80C deductions to your employer timely, you can claim them in your income tax return. You can claim them during return filing, even though they don’t appear on your Form 16 since you could not intimate your employer. Or you may have made those investments after the last date given by the employer for proof submission (but you make investments for deductions before 31st March of the financial year).

Say you made some investments to claim Section 80C deduction – deposits to PPF paid life insurance premium or purchased NSCs. You can easily claim them while filing your IT Return. Have the required details ready with you for e-filing and claim them. You will notice that not all of the listed deductions require investment. Some of these are expenses that you may have incurred during the financial year. So, if you have not been able to fill up your cup with investments, these expenses will come to your rescue. Claim them while filing your return.

Claim These Deductions Under Section 80C Without Making Any Additional Investments

You can sum up all these expenses and add them to the deduction under Section 80C on ClearTax. Here is the list:

Your Share Of The PF Contribution 
This is the amount which gets deducted from your salary as your contribution to the Employees' Provident Fund Scheme or Recognised Provident Fund. This amount is 12% of your basic salary.

Children’s Tuition Fee Payment 
Any tuition fees paid by you for the education of your children (maximum 2) are allowed under Section 80C. This payment may have been made to any school, college, university or other educational institution situated within India for the purpose of full-time education of your children. It includes payments for play school, pre-nursery, and nursery.

Principal Repayments On Loan For The Purchase Of House Property 
Payments made towards principal repayment of a loan taken for buying or constructing a residential house property are also allowed as a deduction.

Stamp Duty & Registration Fees 
Stamp duty and registration fees incurred to purchase the house property taxpayer can claim this expense as a deduction. However, if you transfer the property before the end of 5 years from the year in which you took possession of the property, the deduction claimed will be added back to your income, and you’ll have to pay tax on it.  

Life Insurance Premium Paid 
Any premium paid by you for life insurance of yourself, your spouse or any child (child may be dependent/independent, minor/major, or married/unmarried) can be claimed as a deduction. The 80C deduction is valid on insurance policies purchased after 1st April 2012 only if the premium is less than 10% of the sum assured. The deduction can be claimed for the full amount paid (premium including service tax & other charges).

Bills For Preventive Health Check-Ups 
If you have not yet exhausted your deduction limit under Section 80D and you have a bill for a preventive health check-up, you can claim this bill and get a maximum of Rs 5,000 as a deduction u/s 80D

Need help e-filing?
Refer to our guide on e-filing with ClearTax.

OUR e-FILING GUIDE

LTA Cannot Be Claimed 

Unfortunately, the exemption on LTA cannot be claimed in your return. The bills for your travel against LTA can only be claimed via your employer. You can claim LTA twice in a block of four years. You may carry forward your unclaimed LTA to the next year. So, you can request your employer not to deduct tax on it and allow you to claim it next year. There is no way to claim this amount if you have missed submitting bills to your employer.

Investment Proof Submission Last Date For FY 2023-24

The income tax proof submission's last date for FY 2023-24 will be 31st March 2024. However, since you don’t have to submit it to the income tax department, there is no strict deadline, and it varies from employer to employer. Generally, your employer may ask you to declare investment proofs from January onwards till March. However, one must try to declare it at the earliest to prevent the excess deduction of TDS.

No Submission Of Proofs Is Required With The Return

Remember, you DO NOT need to submit these income tax proofs to ClearTax or to the income tax department. We recommend you keep those safe lest you receive an income tax notice and the assessing officer calls for them. You must retain these proofs for 3 Years.