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When you enjoy something, you think nothing of it without jumping on it. On the other hand, if you consider something as a burden, you cannot bring yourself to d it and start postponing it till you can no longer postpone it.
July is one such month when one is required to perform such unpleasant tasks. If one is an Indian tax payer then he must file his tax return by the end of this month. Most people find it an unpleasant task and kep postponing it. When they finally persuade themselves to do it on the last day, they find that others have also got the same idea. And since many people are trying to do the same thing at the same time, the system crashes and that throws things out of gear for everyone concerned.
The government also realises it and the last date is often extended. This year was one such occasion. The last date of filing income tax return has now been extended by one month. The last minute IT return filers will now procrastinate till end of august and will then scramble to file their returns on 31 august 2019, I am sure of it.
If one is an income tax return filer as well as a central government employee then one has some most unpleasant tasks to perform in this month. This tast is, filling up one’s performance review for the last year. It is called APAR (Annual Performance Appraisal Report).
In the past, things were done manually. Now everything is done online. So, government officers file their APAR as well as ITR electronically.
For someone like me, who is an experienced computer user, filing online APAR and ITR should not be a problem. And these problems can be daunting.
Just like there is a deadline for filing ITR, there is a deadline for APAR as well. Officers in various central governments had time schedule, viz officers would file their self appraisal by 30 june 2019, reporting officer would give his report by 31 july 2019, reviewing officer would give his remark by 31 august 2019 and accepting officer by 15 september etc. Different departments and zones have their own time frame that may be a bit flexible. For instance, in my Railweay zone, one could file self appraisal by 15 july 2019 and reporting officer had to give their review by 5 august 2019 and reviewing officer by 20 august 2019 and accepting officer by 10 september 2019.
Last date for me to file my self appraisal in my APAR was 15 july 2019. It was threatened that after 15 july 2019, the form would move to the next authority (reporting officer) on its own if self appraisal was not done by then. I took no action till 11 july 2019. Then I started to act. I collected data and filled up the relevant portions and then saved the data. That was on friday 12 july 2019.
The next step was to digitally sign it and forward it online to the reporting authority. Digital signature turned out to be a big hassle. Every Government officer has a digital signature ( in a USB token form)with him that he uses for digital signatures for various purposes like filing APAR, authorising purchases etc. These digital signatures are valid only for two years. You merrily use a digital signature and before you realise it, its validity is over. Then one has to apply for new token.
The digital signature that I had successfully used till six months ago was no longer working and so I had obtained a new digital signature. And this was registered in the APAR software as well. But when I tried to sign my APAR form digitally, I got error message. I tried the whole friday and also saturday but I could not get my digital signature working.
I was not the only one struggling with my APAR of course. There were others as well. When I discussed my dilemma with others on the same boat, I was advised that the solution was to de register the digital signature and then re register it.
On monday (15 july 2019), which was the last day for my APAR to be sent, I tried to follow the advice. I de registered the digital signature and then re registered it. Then, with bated breath, I procceeded on to affix digital signature. Much to my relief, this time it worked like a charm and my APAR went through duly digitally signed, to the next authority, viz reporting officer.
I too was reporting officer and/or reviewing officer for many officers and their APARs has arrived on my inbox. So I proceeded to write them. The most satisfying part of the exercise for me was to digitally sign the document and find the satisfying message that the digitally signed document was successfully sent to the next authority. I quickly finished up all APA’s in one day when the going was good and the digital signature was co operating.
That done, I began to feel as if I had won a big battle. Now I began to prepare myself mentally for filing the ITR. Going by past experience, I know that one should not try to file ITR on the last day. One should file it at least a few days in advance when income tax depratment servers are not lightly loaded and respond well. On the last day, one may not even get to access these servers.
In the past, ITR filing was a manual process and it had to be submitted in the local Income tax office, duly taking stampedacknowledgement. It was a hassle and so many people, including me, would pay money to some chartered accountant, who would bring an ITR form and take your signature on it. Then he would fill up the various colums, submit the form to the income tax office and give you the stamped acknowledgement.
The chartered accountant earned his money because it was a work full of hassles. And then the income tax rates kept on changing every year. Moreover, female employees had different income tax rates. So I would just get in touch with a chartered accountant and pay him for filing ITR for me as well as my wife.
Since 2012 or so, it has become possible to file income tax online. One could file it online, and also digitally sign if you had a digital signature with you. I would resolve to have a digital signature for myself, but I could never live up to this resolution. So, the next best thing was to take print our of the online filled form, sign it manually and send it to Income tax department at Bangalore. After a few months, you would receive acknowledgement that your ITR was accepted.
When online filing of ITR became possible, I began to do it for me and my wife.
since this was once in an year exercise, I would forget how I had filled up the ITR the last year and I would start afresh. I was this feeling that I had forgotten how it is done, that was the cause behind my reluctance in filing ITR.
Though the last date for filing ITR was extended to 31 july 2019, I decided that it was high time that I mustered enough courage and be done with it. So, it was on 29 july 2019 that I opened the computer and logged on to the income tax department site. And it was there that I got stuck. What was my user name and password ? With some online query, I realised that once PAN number was the user ID. Then I typed my password on a hunch and it worked. So I was relieved. I was finally logged on to the income tax department site.
I chose the option of filing the return online. I had my form 16 ready with me. I managed to put most values correctly and was pleased that the online calculator agreed with the calculations of form 16. But when I reached the portion that calculated income tax, I found that I was supposed to pay some more tax according to IT department calculation, whereas my form 16 showed that I had paid more tax than needed and IT department owed me some refund.
Where was the discreparcy ? On carefull scrutiny, I realised that I had not mentioned by contribution towards PM national relief fund, which was 100 % tax deductible. But how to enter this figure ? The relevant column of section 80 G was not accepting the figure. Then I realised that the ITR form had another tab for donations under sction 80 G. I went to that tab, filled the details and found that the relevant column in the form now accepted this figure. I also found that now the form 16 figures of income tax matched with the online calculation. So IT department was now in agreement that I had paid all my IT and I owed some refund.
That done, I saved the draft and came to the final part which is always my favourite part, sending the filled up form. I clicked the send button. The form displayed two errors, one was that I had to specify the bank account where refund is to be received. Second error was about using some prohibited special characters. I rectified the errors and clicked the button. This time the form was submitted.
Submission was alright, but form needed to be verified as well. It was only after verification that the IT depratment processes it. The traditional method is take a print out, sigh it and send it by post of IT department at Bangalore. It is the older and non elegant method of doing it, which used to be the method followed by majority of tax filers. But now several method of e verificcation are available and the IT department keeps adding to it. Last time I had done the e verification though online banking. This time I found a new option, viz e verification through Aadhaar. I chose this option. One gets OTP on one’s Aadhar registered mobile and this OTP is then needed to be typed in on the form. When I did not get the OTP for some time, I again clicked the verify by Aadhaar button. When OTP came and I filled it, I had a feeling that second click meant another OTP and the OTP filled my me was for the earlier click and so my e verification would fail.
I was right. My e mail advised me that my e verification had failed.
I braced myself and repeated the process again. This time I patiently waited for the OTP to arrive. It arrived and I keyed in the numbers. Now I received confirmation message that my aadhaar verification was successful, the ITR was submitted and e verified and I did not have to do anything else.
I felt jubilant. Now it was time to do the same for my wife’s ITR. She had sent her IT details to me by whatsapp, but my mobile storage was full and while deleting my storage, I had deleted her IT details as well. I was itching to process my wife’s IT return but I did not have any details to go by.
After lunch time, I phoned my wife and asked her to send her tax details. Armed with those details, I opened the IT department page and tried to log on. But I got an error- username or password incorrect ! I checked again. The username, viz PAN number was right. Was the password incorrect ? How to check it. I found that I had fortunately saved the details of my wife’s later ITR. The password was incorrect. I fed the correct details and was relieved to find the page opening.
Feeding the details was no problem. I find that the details were already filled up in the form. Apparently, IT department already had picked up the details of her IT return from her form 26AS (TRACES). So the details matched perfectly.
So I saved the draft and submitted the return. As for e verification, I thought that I should do it through online banking. I did that and the OTP that came on my wife’s registered mobile was filled. But the e verification could not be done. Perhaps I had done some mistake. I should have logged out of ITax department site before going to bank site. So I decided to do it through Aadhaar verification. On clicking this option, the IT site demanded aadhaar OTP within 2 minutes. This 2 minute limit was not there when I was doing it for my own tax return. Thankfully the OTP arrived in time and I fed the OTP with 30 seconds to spare. This time the e verification was a success. So, I was able to file the IT return of my wife as well.
As always, when the task gets accomplished, I feel that it was easy ! But by the next eleven months, I will have forgotten the process and I would agains get nervous and feel clueless when it is time to file the ITR the next year.
After this rather long writeup, I struggled to come up with a “suitable” song to go with it. Then I tried to visualise what the lead pair of Hindi movies will do after they accomplish such an important task. They will go outdoors and sing a joyous duet, of course.
So, here is just that joyous duet song. The song is sung by Rafi and Asha Bhonsle. Hasrat Jaipuri is the lyricist. Music is composed by Satyam.
The movie was directed by K S R Das for PNR Pictures, Madras. the movie had Anil Dhawan, Aruna Irani, Jyoti Laxmi, Narendranath, Jagdeep, Sulochana, Ramaprabha, Brahm Bhardwaj, Shetty, Coca Cola, Shekhar, Swaraj, Prem Kumar, Master Ripple Sapru, Bindu (special appearance), Baby Dolly, Baby Charulata etc in it.
The movie had five songs in it. Two songs have been covered in the past.
The song is picturised on Anil Dhawan and an unfamiliar looking lady. Going by the cast, my guess is that she is Jyoti Laxmi. I request our knowledgeable readers to help identify the lady.
Song-Kya kar diya bata do zara(Raani aur Jaani)(1973) Singers-Rafi, Asha Bhonsle, Lyrics-Hasrat Jaipuri, MD-Satyam
Lyrics
kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua aa aa
kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewana hua
tumhi ko mana
tumhi ko chaha tumhi ko pooja
haye bolo kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil diwana hua
poochha tumhi ne to kya chaahiye ae
hamne kaha ki wafa chaahiye ae
daaman tumhaara na chhodenge hum
waada wafa ka na todenge hum
wafa nibhaao
idhar to aao
wafa nibhaao
idhar to aao
gale lagaao
haaye bolo
kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
aa aa aa
kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
o o o
ru ru ru ru
la ra la la
laralalalala
lalalala
dam se tumhaare jawaan hai bahaar
tum jo kaho to karoon dil nisaar
tumhaare siva hum kidhar jayenge
yahi hum to kadmon pe mar jaayenge
bade haseen ho
ke dilnasheen ho
bade haseen ho
ke dilnasheen ho
mere yakeen ho
haaye bolo kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
haaye
kya kar diya bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
nibhaana sajan dil ki har baat ko
samajhna zara dil ke jazbaat ko
khabar hai mujhe teri har baat ki
kadar hai mujhe tere jazbaat ki
tumhi dharam ho
tumhi karam ho
tumhi dharam ho
tumhi karam ho
tumhi sanam ho
haaye bolo kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
aa aa aa
kya kar diya
bata do zara
ye dil deewaana hua
o o o ru ru ru ru
laralalala
laalaalaalaala
lalaalalaa
laalaalaalaalalalaa
laralara
lalalala
o ho ho ho