Benefits of Filing your Income Tax Return on time

“I’m taking the #TaxPledge to file IT returns with the easy Income Tax efiling option from H&R Block at BlogAdda.”

Under Income Tax Law if your total income exceeds the basic exemption limit: You have to file the Income Tax Return within the prescribed time, i.e. by the due date.

This is applicable for the Assessment Year 2012-13.

As an Individual you are required by law to file your Income Tax Returns, if your total income without allowing deductions (such as Section 80C etc) exceeds the basic exemption limit.

For Assessment Year 2012-13, the basic exemption limits are the following:

•   For Men below the age of 60, the exemption limit is Rs. 1,80,000.

•   For Women, below the age of 60, the exemption limit is Rs. 1,90,000.

•   For Senior Citizens, whose age is between 60 years to 80 years, the exemption limit is Rs. 2,50,000. This is identical for men and women.

•   For Super Senior Citizens, of the age of 80 years or more, the exemption limit is Rs. 5,00,000.

What does Total Income without allowing deductions (such as Section 80C etc) actually mean?

Let’s say, your gross total Income is Rs. 2,00,000. You have paid Rs. 50,000 in LIC premium for claiming deduction under Section 80C. Your Taxable Income is Rs. 1,50,000 (Rs. 2,00,000 – Rs. 50,000). The tax payable on Rs. 1,50,000 is Zero.

However, even in this situation, you are required to file your Income Tax Return as your gross total Income exceeds the basic exemption limit of Rs. 1,80,000. (assuming you are not a senior citizen).

Exemption for filing Income Tax Return for Salaried Employees

For the Assessment Year 2012-13, there is an exemption from filing the Income Tax Return for Salaried employees, subject to the following conditions. 

•   Your Total Income after deductions (such as Section 80C etc) is upto Rs. 5,00,000.

•   Income other than Salary should be only from Saving Bank Interest, upto Rs. 10,000. If you have any other source of Income like House Property, Capital Gain, or even interest from fixed deposits, you will have to file your Income Tax Return.

•   You must declare this Interest Income from the Saving Bank to the Employer. The employer then has to deduct the TDS taking into account your Interest Income.

•   If you have a refund due, you need to your file your Income Tax Return to claim this refund.

This exemption is difficult to get in actual practice. You will most likely have to file your Income Tax Return.

This is because, you must declare your Interest Income to your employer before 31st March of the Financial Year. But in most cases, the Bank issues the Interest statement after 31st March. So it is virtually impossible to report the Bank Interest to the employer in time.

Compulsory filing of Income Tax Returns if you have foreign assets.

For the Assessment 2012-13, it is mandatory to file your Income Tax Return if you have any foreign assets. Even though you may not have any taxable Income.

When is e-filing your Income Tax Return compulsory?

For the Assessment year 2012-13, e-filing of the Income Tax Return has become compulsory for the following cases:

•   If your Total Income exceeds Rs. 10 Lakhs, then you must e-file your Income Tax Return.

•   If you own foreign assets, you must e-file.

I have paid all my taxes, do I still need to file my Income Tax Return?

As explained above, the law has placed an obligation on you to file the Income Tax Return even if you have no tax due.

The due dates of filing returns for Assessment Year 2012-13 are the following:

Category	Due Date
(a)   Most people fall in this category – Salaried employees, pensioners and other persons whose accounts are not required to be audited	31st July 2012
(b)   Companies and other persons whose accounts are to be audited	30th September 2012

What happens if a person does not file the Income Tax Return by the due date

You have to Pay Interest on Income Tax Due if you don’t file on time

If you do not file the Income Tax Return by the due date:

You are liable to pay interest at the rate of one percent for every month after the due date till the date of filing the return.

If No Tax is due: Interest is calculated on the amount of tax payable after adjustment of pre-paid taxes like advance tax, TDS etc. So, if there is no tax payable on the basis of the Income declared in the Tax Return, there is no liability for the payment of interest.

You don’t get the benefit of Carry Forward of Losses if you don’t file on time

Under income tax law, if you have sustained a Business loss or loss under the head “Capital Gains”, you can carry forward the loss ONLY if you file the Income Tax Return by the due date.

Therefore, if you have sustained a loss, you must file your Income Tax Return in time if you want to carry forward the loss for future adjustment with your Income.

Possibility of Penalty or Prosecution by the Income Tax Department

Say you could not file the Income Tax Return by the due date: To avoid any penalty by the Income Tax Department, you must file your Income Tax Return before the end of the relevant assessment year that is 31st March 2013.

Possibility of Penalty and Prosecution: If you do not file your Income Tax Return by 31st March 2013, the Income Tax Department may impose a penalty of Rs. 5000, even though the tax payable by you may be Zero.

Further, if a person has failed to file the Income Tax Return by 31st March 2013 and the tax payable after adjustment of advance tax and TDS exceeds Rs. 3000, he may be prosecuted for imprisonment also. However, this law is used in practice very rarely.

Other reasons for filing the returns of income within time

·         If a refund is due after adjustment of prepaid taxes, it is necessary to file the Income Tax Return to get the refund from the Income Tax Department.

·         Bank Loans: Further, the return is a declaration of your income and it will be extremely helpful when you are applying for a loan from bank. Before granting the loan, banks want to know your financial capacity and your income details as shown by you in income tax returns. 

·         Visas of foreign countries: Many countries want to know if you are financially sound before they issue you a visa and for this purpose they will rely on your income tax returns.

       why to write IT returns and advantages of it
“I’m taking the #TaxPledge to file IT returns with the easy Income Tax efiling option from H&R Block at BlogAdda.”


The tax that is levied on the earnings of individuals, businesses, corporations or other legal entities is referred to as Income Tax.  The types of payments that fall under the tax bracket like capital gains, business incomes and personal income or wages are called “Tax Net”.

There is no universal tax rate fixed for all incomes. It varies across different sectors and sections and there maybe few incomes that do not fall under the tax bracket at all. Primarily we deal with two types of taxes namely Direct Taxes and Indirect Taxes. Direct Taxes are those whose liability is directly borne by the tax payer for example income tax where as the liability of indirect taxes like VAT etc can be slipped on to a third party.

The Income Tax Act 1961 states that all those assesses whose total income exceeds the prescribed bracket of exemption will be charged with income tax. It is important to know that the residential status of the individual also plays a pivotal role in determining the total income of an individual.

Meaning of Income Tax Returns – If you fall under the taxation bracket then you would have to provide a declaration to the Income Tax Department about the earnings you have made with permitted deductions and exemptions that computes your tax liability in a format that is pre-defined by the Government at the end of every financial year.

This also includes royalties on which no tax has been deducted, interest on your savings bank account, earnings from part-time work, dividends, fees, rent etc which have not been taxed or maybe a part or portion of which has been taxed. These statements signed and affirmed by you revealing the correct picture of your income during the previous financial year are collected by the Government. This is known as Income Tax Return or Return of Income.

Benefits of Filing Tax Return Online

• While you file your returns online, the calculations are done automatically thus you are relieved from the hassle of calculations and confusions. You get to know that very moment what money you owe or what would come back to you. Obviously, its accuracy can not be questioned.
• It is easier, convenient and time saving. The money that is owed to you reaches you within weeks whereas if you go by the traditional method it takes time.
• The moment you click the submit icon, you receive the acknowledge slip
• Those of you who wish to save yourself from the plethora of paperwork, filing income tax returns online is a boon.
• Another benefit of filing tax return online is that you do not have to wait in long queues nor have to pay an agent who can stand on your behalf for hours in the office in order to file your returns.
• Online tax returns have broken the notion that government offices have specific fixed hours of working. You may file your returns at any time in day or night.
• As it becomes more easily accessible, filing returns online also gives you an advantage of checking the status of your refund. 

How to File Income Tax Returns Online

Electronic Filing or E-Filing is referred to the process of filing your tax returns online. Follow the following steps for filing tax returns online. 

• The very first thing that you ought to do is to sign up as a new user by visiting the official website of Income Tax of India.
• While you sign up as a new user you will be asked to give out your PAN Number and other details. Once you fill in the form click on the button that says “Register”.
• Once you get registered you will be taken to a form that shows your address, the one that you have given for your PAN card. You need to update your telephone number, e-mail, create your password and click “Submit”.
• You will now be turned to the e-filing links for your tax returns for the assessment year. Now you are required to click on the link for the assessment year and choose your category. For example, if you are the one only with salaried income then download only ITR-1.
• Along with that also download the excel utility which is like an excel sheet in which you will fill in the required data and you need to save that on your system.
• Once through with this, upload the excel sheet and press “Submit Return”.
• Once through with this, you will see that an acknowledgement slip pops up on your screen. You will have to take a print out of the same, verify and sign it and post it to your local income tax office.
• Make sure that the acknowledgement receipt reaches your local income tax office within 15 days since you have filled in the form online failing which you will be required to go through the same process again.
• For all the tech-savvy people out there, digital signatures can also be used if you wish to eliminate even the slightest paper work. 

Filing Tax Return has become all the more convenient, accurate, paperless, time-saving and secured since the time it has become just a click away. However, while you turn to filing income tax returns online make sure that you cross check your address on the form, your return is being mailed to the right server. All pages should bear your Name and other credentials on front as well as back.

Having done that, you can enjoy the luxury of filing your income tax returns online from anywhere at anytime.

               Gender equality 

Working-class couples that buck convention and live together rather than marry take on traditional roles when it comes to housework, according to a new study by a Cornell University sociologist.

Cohabiting women do a disproportionate share of the housework, even when the women work and the men don't -- and even when the women want to share the housework more equally, said co-author Sharon Sassler, Cornell professor of policy analysis and management.

"When men aren't working, they don't see domestic labor as a means of contributing. In fact, they double down and do less of it, since it challenges their masculinity," Sassler said. "But when men earn more, women -- who are almost all working, too -- feel obliged to contribute in some way to maintaining the household, generally by cooking and cleaning."

Even where housework was shared somewhat equally, the women tended to supervise the men's chores; as a result, women retained accountability for its performance.

But not all gender roles go unquestioned among these couples, the researchers found. Most of the women came to their relationships expecting more equal partnerships. Most men preferred to have a partner who also worked for pay, and about one-third of the couples were actively trying to share equally the burden of making money.

Nonetheless, the men seemed content to reap the benefits of partners who brought in an income without challenging their dominant domestic power positions. In fact, none of the couples equally shared household and financial responsibilities, Sassler said.

"The connection between masculinity and privileges is maintained for many of these men. Almost none of the women who paid the majority of the household bills were awarded the privileges that male providers have traditionally received," she said, such as retaining control of household finances.

Sassler wrote the research with Amanda J. Miller of the University of Indianapolis. Their paper, "The Construction of Gender Among Working-Class Cohabiting Couples," was published in the December issue of Qualitative Sociology.

The researchers interviewed 30 working-class cohabiting couples between ages 19 and 35. They found the couples fell into three groups: conventional, in which each partner accepts the traditional gender role; contesting, in which one partner (generally the woman) tries to forge a more balanced arrangement, though often unsuccessfully; and counter-conventional, in which the female partner often provides financially and still must perform most household labor.

The research shows that it's tough to change traditional gender roles even among people living together, who ostensibly might be trying to undo the conventional roles of a male breadwinner and female homemaker, Sassler said.

Given that the majority of marriages are preceded by a period of cohabitation, the study suggests that living together sets the stage for re-creating unequal gender roles. The institutionalization of gender roles that disadvantage women is evident even in informal relationships, Sassler said.

"What's the final frontier of gender equality? Who cleans up."

 “I am taking part in the #ShareTheLoad Challenge with Ariel and Akshara at BlogAdda."

              Mowgli...

Mowgli is the most recognizable character fromThe Jungle Book, thanks in part to all the movie and stage adaptations that cast him as the star, but also because he's the protagonist in three of the book's stories.

You might think you might know Mowgli if you've seen him elsewhere, but book Mowgli is quite a bit different from Disney Mowgli. He's usually butt-naked, for one thing. And being raised in the jungle isn't all sing-alongs and playing with cuddly bears—Mowgli can be violent and kind of scary. This is the result of being taught the rules of the jungle.

Mowgli is a fish out of water from the beginning. Or should we say frog out of water? Mowgli means "little frog" (1.44), after all, likely a reference to his wriggly nature and his lack of a thick coat of body hair, unlike the wolves that raise him.

The jungle isn't a nice place. It's a place where animals have to kill to survive. So, in order to survive, Mowgli, too, has to hunt and kill, and keep himself from being hunted. Shere Khan, the tiger, hunts Mowgli from the get-go, but Mother Wolf says that one day Mowgli will grow strong enough to kill Shere Khan instead.

And you know what? She's right.

Jungle Boogie

The first two stories starring Mowgli show him being raised by the Wolves and his mentors, Bagheera and Baloo. Together, they teach him to survive, and Baloo makes him learn all the "Master-Words" (3.10) so that he can communicate to any creature in the jungle.

And what does this get Mowgli? It gets him expelled from the Wolf Pack.

See, most of the wolves aren't that bright, and they let themselves be manipulated by Shere Khan into voting Mowgli off the island—err, out of the jungle. So Mowgli goes to live with other humans. He cries when he leaves the jungle: "I do not know what this is. Am I dying, Bagheera?" (1.139), he weeps. Animals, like big boys and baseball players, don't cry, so this show of human emotion is strange for Mowgli.

Mowgli is an outsider in the world of man, too, though—the kid just can't catch a break. He has to learn the rules of man and their language, because the villagers think he is "as silly and dumb" with them "as a man would be […] in the Jungle" (5.12). Of course, they mean dumb as in silent, not stupid; Mowgli is far from stupid. The villagers on the other hand are just as bright as the wolves (i.e. not very), so they kick Mowgli out as well after he kills Shere Khan and defies the village's top hunter.

After being rejected by both his tribes, Mowgli ventures into the jungle basically by himself, and must survive as a true lone wolf.

 “I’m blogging about#MyMowgliMemory at BlogAdda.”

              My Jungle Book

It is hard to think of and write about more double bills for my movie posts so I thought I’d return to my post about Betty Blue and write about another film that I love.

Just as with the understated classics I want to set out my stall early on that good movies are good enough. Both Betty Blue and today’s choice The Jungle Book are never going to win any sort of consensus prize for the best movies ever made but they are really good. They also have a personal history attached that makes them worth writing about.

When I was younger both my sisters would be given VHS copies of Disney movies at a rate of about two a year, one for Christmas and one at their birthday. It seems strange today to think of that pace of movie acquisition, never mind the clunky VHS cassettes and how they would warp over time. I didn’t really ever get any of the Disney movies myself but I would inevitably find myself watching them with my sisters who would watch them repeatedly. With just four TV channels back then, who could blame us.

I guess we are talking about the years 1991 to 1995, something of a purple patch for Disney before Pixar came in with Toy Story and started to sweep away all before it. We’re definitely talking about movies like Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and, of course, The Lion King. In between these videos, there would be reissues of older Disney movies like Peter Pan(which I can remember seeing in a cinema in Havant at about the age of 5 and laughing my head off throughout), Cinderella and my favourite The Jungle Book.

Being a little older than both my sisters, I guess that The Jungle Bookresonated more with me both because I had been a cub scout and because it is basically an innocent coming of age tale with central characters that are almost exclusively male. This last point meant that from my point of view, The Jungle Book was less sappy than the others and I felt more comfortable watching it.

Fast forward to 2008 and I had just moved into my flat in St Albans. I was miserable: the job I had taken was not quite what I had expected, the commute was incredibly tiring and my downstairs neighbour was a crazy old guy who would have his television turned up to full volume from 6am onwards every morning. Nevertheless, I had at least got my first pay cheque so I went around HMV and bought a whole sack of DVDs. Last on the pile was The Jungle Book, the rationale being that I needed something that would cheer me up and for it to be something that I could unashamedly play loud to counter the crazy old guy downstairs.

Why I love it

I love The Jungle Book for three main reasons: it’s sweet and uplifting, it looks great and the songs are amazing. At heart, it is a movie about bravery, loyalty and friendship. This is presumably why Rudyard Kipling’sstory1 was such an influence on the scouting movement. It is wonderfully paced, a largely slow-moving and serene story punctuated with bursts of frenetic madness. It looks utterly gorgeous with a predominant palette of browns and greens while the cell animation is a masterful example of the craft, you only have to look at the horrible CG renditions of the characters on the recent DVD cover above to see that the transition to computers has not always brought with it better drawing and characterisation.

And then those songs. Bare Necessitiesis guaranteed to cheer me up every time I hear it, followed closely by I Wanna Be Like You. These are songs that I know inside out and back to front: I often catch myself in the middle of singing them without knowing what prompted me to start. Meanwhile there are lesser songs that also work well in their context: Trust In Me, Kaa’s song to the hypnotised Mowgli; the song of the marching elephants; the barbershop quartet of vultures who look like the Beatles about four years early and of course the song that the girl from the village sings about having to fetch the water.

“I’m blogging about#MyMowgliMemory at BlogAdda.”

“I’m pledging to#KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”


We may love getting high on 'bhang' on every Holi now, but the innocence of celebrating the festival as kids can never really be forgotten. How we wish we could go back in time and play Holijust like we did as little kids. Here are 15Holi memories from our childhood we can never forget!

1. Come March and you could literally smell the festivity in the air. Shops sprawled out on the streets with Holi gift hampers, colours, water balloons and, of course, those fancy water guns. You could smell the aromatic gulaals everywhere! Going Holi shopping with parents, days in advance, was the best thing ever!

2. Holi was never a one-day affair. Celebrations started around a week in advance and the whole locality lived under the delightful terror of being attacked by the notorious kids, hiding behind parapets and staircases, armed with water balloons.

3. Plans were made the night before and the excitement made it impossible to sleep. And still, we woke up early in the morning and prepared countless water balloons, stocking them up in tubs and buckets, trying our best to not waste even one. It literally hurt when you found most balloons in those packets to be defective.

© BCCL

4. Holi was equally about scrumptious delights. Binging on gujiyas till the stomach hurt is a memory every 90s kid would relate to. Its mention is enough to get us drooling even now!

5. Relatives, neighbours and family friends kickstarted the day by visiting each other, though the way they wished each other was just too unbelievably civil as compared to how we kids celebrated it!

6. Hiding behind the parapets of balconies and terraces, we played the most mischievous pranks on passers-by. Sometimes, we got scolded too but seeing people react like crazy after being drenched by buckets full of water was totally worth it. Those with terraces had the best Holi strategies ever.

© BCCL

7. Holi was no less than a war; you could be shot down by a water balloon if you stepped out in your balcony even for a second. Terrace wars were at their peak, and you always ended up dirtying the whole house, despite all the warnings your mother gave you the whole week. That one reply, 'bura na mano Holi hai' always saved us!

8. We all had that one friend who had a huge courtyard or a terrace where everybody gathered to play Holi. There was always that one kid who was targeted the most. If you grew up in a DDA housing, you will also remember stealing water from your neighbour's water tank!

9. Every colony had rival gangs and Holi was wartime. It was the time when we ganged up against each other and found newer ways to defeat the rivals. But, of course, by the end of it all, we were all a bunch of kids having the best time of our lives together. It all ended in our friendships becoming only stronger.

© BCCL

10. Thanks to Bollywood, we had new Holi songs each year. Songs, food, unlimited supply of water - what else could we have asked for!

11. No matter how early we ran out of water balloons, the celebrations still lasted till the sun went down. Eggs, dirty water, sludge and what not - we made sure our arms and ammunitions never ended.

12. The winters would have just gone by, but the summers hadn't arrived either. Water only made the wind feel colder. Even though we were shivering throughout, it made no difference to our enthusiasm. Cold, fever? Bring it on! There was no way we were giving up a chance to celebrate Holi.

13. Just when you thought it was over, and you were standing in the sun, trying to dry yourself up, came a new person to the party with a personal agenda of spraying everybody present with his water gun. And, the celebration began again!

14. The madness continued even post Holi. We all stocked up balloons for days to come and left no opportunity of aiming at passers-by who looked stunned to death! Of course, we would instantly duck behind our balcony parapets for fear of being caught.

15. The amount of fun you had was directly proportional to the amount of colour on your skin and nails the next day in school. Wherever you looked, you saw monsters with blue-purple ears and orange fingers. Yes, our mothers advised us to apply oil on our skin and hair before playing Holi for a reas

                           My holi celebrations
 Colours, gujiyas and fun...I love Holi so much
Holi happens to be my favourite festival. I particularly enjoy the colour part of it. I keep stocks of every colour but red happens to be my favourite. The other ones specially, the purple is one I hate to use on Holi. It never goes and makes one look so bad. 

I also enjoy preparing gujiyas with my mother and sisters. My mother keep frying them in the pan, while we sisters do the rolling, cutting and filling part of it. My favourite job is to do the filling which gives me a chance to keep stealing the tasty khoya which is full of dry fruits. Eating the gujiyas - piping hot just as they come out of pan is the other most cherished moment of the festival.

I also take care to keep my preparation for the festival ready. Like choose some old and faded jeans and a shirt I am bored off besides taking care of the oiling and creaming part of it. Otherwise, the aftermath of the Holi festival could be extremely tiresome. 

I have also had a bad experience after Holi once when I got so much engrossed in playing with the colour that I became to late to get a bath and the water tank got exhausted. I had to wait for hours drenched in the water before the water supply was restored. It was a very painful lesson that I learnt - take a bath on time.

I particularly enjoy the festival in the company of friends and relatives, i.e. when there are lot of people to be coloured. The excitement is unmatched when everybody loves the festival as much as you do.

Oh what fun we had on the Holi that year. The tradition followed was digging the lawn generating some mud, throwing some buckets of water and then the prey. So, it was a very earthy kind of Holi that we played that year in the hostel. The good part was that the prey was asked get the buckets herself.

Then everybody decided that we have grown up enough to have our first doze of bhang. A thandai was prepared, somebody had stored a little milk from the morning breakfast. There was one very enthusiastic girl who sneaked in the maximum share. High on the spirit of the festival we had the mandatory dance on the Rang Barse bheege chunar wali....



Meanwhile, one who stole maximum share, sat under the sun and started waiting for the bhang to give her some kick. She kept cribbing for about half an hour..nothing is happening..nothing is happening...

After some time she suddenly started laughing and did not stopped even after repeated attempts to stop her from doing so. Her body started aching but she could not control her laughter. Then all of a sudden she started crying and then again could not stop... She got the kind of high she never expected. 

Although I can't remember her name, I can't forget what fun we had at her expense. I owe a big thank you to her for making that Holi so memorable in my life.


“I’m pledging to#KhulKeKheloHoli this year by sharing my Holi memories at BlogAdda in association with Parachute Advansed.”