TDS Return Filing & Compliance in Raipur

What changed on 1 April 2026

The Income-tax Act, 2025 replaced the Income-tax Act, 1961, and the Income-tax Rules, 2026 replaced the Rules of 1962. Rates and thresholds are unchanged. What changed is the structure — and for TDS, the practical effects are immediate.

The return forms have been renumbered.

Certificates and section numbers have changed too

The certificates have been renumbered too. The salary TDS certificate that employees know as Form 16 is now Form 130. The non-salary certificate previously issued as Form 16A is now Form 131. There are corresponding new formats for property transactions and for tax collected at source. The employee declaration of rent, housing loan interest and investments, previously Form 12BB, is now Form 124 — a change payroll functions need to make at the start of the year, not at the end.

The section numbers deductors quote have gone. Salary TDS now sits in section 392. The whole of resident non-salary TDS — the provisions long known by numbers such as 194C for contract payments and 194J for professional fees — has been consolidated into a single section 393, with each type of payment carrying a numeric payment code instead of its own section. Payments to non-residents fall under section 393(2), and tax collected at source under section 394. Quarterly statements are furnished under section 397.

Both systems are live at once. A correction or belated statement for a quarter falling up to 31 March 2026 still goes on the old form, under the old Act. A statement for any quarter from April 2026 goes on the new form. A single deductor will legitimately file both in the same calendar year, and mixing them produces validation failures rather than a helpful warning. This is the most common source of error we are seeing at present.

One date has moved. The tax collected at source return for the first quarter used to fall due on 15 July. Under the new Rules, the TCS statement in Form 143 follows the same calendar as the TDS statements, which means 31 July. Deductors who collect tax at source and were used to the earlier date now have two weeks more — and those who assumed nothing changed have, on the other hand, no problem. The risk runs the other way for anyone whose internal calendar still shows 15 July as a separate deadline.

Deposit and filing due dates

Deposit of tax deducted. By the 7th of the month following deduction, for all months other than March. For tax deducted in March, the deposit date is later, which is why March deductions are worth tracking separately.

Quarterly statements.

Challan-cum-statement cases and certificates

The later date for the fourth quarter exists to allow year-end salary reconciliation and the issue of annual certificates.

Challan-cum-statement cases — such as tax deducted on the purchase of immovable property or on rent by an individual — are reported within 30 days from the end of the month of deduction, on Form 141. No separate quarterly return is required for these.

Certificates. The annual salary certificate is issued by 15 June following the year. Non-salary certificates are issued within 15 days of the due date for the quarterly statement — so the certificate obligation follows the return rather than standing apart from it.

Where TDS goes wrong for Raipur businesses

Contract payments. Construction and civil contractors, and the businesses that engage them, account for a large share of TDS in this region. Deduction on running-account bills, treatment of material supplied separately, and the distinction between a contract for work and a sale of goods all affect whether deduction is required and at what rate.

Freight and transport. Raipur functions as a distribution point for central India, and payments to transporters are constant. Where a small transport operator furnishes the prescribed declaration, deduction is not required — but the declaration has to be obtained and retained, and reported in the statement. Businesses that simply do not deduct, without holding the declaration, are exposed.

Rent on godowns and commercial premises. Warehousing and yard space around the industrial belts generates substantial rent, and deduction obligations arise once the annual threshold is crossed. Where rent is paid to more than one co-owner, the position needs to be worked out rather than assumed.

Professional and technical fees. Payments to consultants, engineers, architects and other professionals attract deduction at the point of credit or payment, whichever is earlier — a timing rule that catches businesses that account for a bill in March and pay it in April.

Commission and brokerage. Commission to agents, including in mandi and commodity trades, attracts deduction, and is often overlooked where the commission is netted off against the sale proceeds rather than paid separately.

Purchase of immovable property. A buyer of property above the prescribed value must deduct tax and file a challan-cum-statement — now Form 141. With active land and property transactions around Raipur and Naya Raipur, this catches individual buyers who have no other TDS obligations and no TAN. Deduction in these cases is made against PAN rather than TAN, which many buyers do not realise until the seller's credit fails to appear.

Metal scrap. Businesses in the steel and scrap trade have a separate obligation to deduct tax at source under GST on purchases of metal scrap from registered suppliers above the prescribed value, which requires its own registration as a deductor. This is distinct from income tax TDS and is dealt with on our GST Registration page.

Salary. Employers of any size must compute deduction against the employee's chosen tax regime, collect the declaration in the new Form 124, and reconcile at year end before issuing the annual certificate.

Corrections, and the window that now closes

Errors in a TDS statement — a wrong PAN, a mismatched challan, a deduction reported against the wrong quarter — break the credit chain for the recipient, who then cannot claim the credit in their own return. Correction statements are the remedy, but the window is no longer open indefinitely: corrections are permitted within two years from the end of the financial year in which the statement was due. Beyond that, the record cannot be amended, and the recipient's credit is lost permanently.

For that reason, reconciling deductee PANs and challans before upload is worth more than correcting afterwards. We verify PANs in bulk before filing, match challans against the deduction register, and check that credit has actually appeared for the deductee rather than assuming that a successfully filed return means a successful outcome.

What non-compliance costs

Late filing of the statement. A fee of ₹200 for each day of delay, running from the day after the due date until the statement is filed. The total cannot exceed the amount of tax deducted for that quarter. This fee is automatic and cannot be waived by an officer.

Penalty. Where a statement remains unfiled beyond a year, or where incorrect particulars are furnished, a penalty from ₹10,000 up to ₹1,00,000 may be levied. This does not apply where the tax has been paid, the late fee and interest discharged, and the statement filed within a year of the due date.

Interest. Where tax was not deducted at all, interest runs at 1 per cent a month from the date deduction was due. Where it was deducted but deposited late, 1.5 per cent a month from the date of deduction to the date of deposit. Interest must be paid before the statement is filed.

Disallowance of the expense. This is the consequence that costs most and is noticed least. Where tax was required to be deducted on a payment and was not deducted or not deposited, 30 per cent of that payment is disallowed in computing business income. On a large contract payment, the disallowance can exceed the tax that should have been deducted several times over.

Inoperative or unlinked PAN. Where the recipient's PAN is inoperative, deduction is required at a higher rate. Verifying PANs before payment, not after, is the only practical protection — and the higher deduction cannot generally be recovered from the recipient afterwards.

Scope of our work

We advise on whether deduction is required on a given payment and at what rate; compute and schedule monthly deposits; prepare and file quarterly statements on the correct form for the period concerned, whether under the old Act or the new; verify deductee PANs and reconcile challans before upload; generate and issue certificates within time; prepare and file correction statements; apply for a TAN where one is needed; deal with defaults, demands and intimations raised on the deductor; and advise on lower or nil deduction certificates where a recipient is entitled to one.

Where a business has historic defaults, we establish which years remain correctable within the two-year window and deal with those first, since those are the only ones where the recipient's credit can still be restored.