Tax Query: 'How is Form 16 different from 16A?'

Do you have income tax queries?

Please mail your queries to getahead@rediff.co.in with the subject line 'Ask Anil' and Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons (external link), will answer your income tax queries.

V P Gupta: I have two questions:

1. Retired public sector employee is getting annuity (salary /pension) from LIC on sole contribution from employer. Under what category of nature of employment it will come in? ITR, pensioner or others, besides this other income is from interest and EPS.

Anil Rego: An Annuity will get categorised under the head of salaries. Under the nature of employment field, you can select “Pensioners” as the option.

2. Is it necessary for joint holder in bank account to give account details in ITR if he is income tax payee and first holder is not income tax payee? If not necessary can he deactivate bank account details given earlier in ITR?

Anil Rego: According to CBDT you have to give details of all bank account jointly held in India by you even if you are not the first Joint Account holder in the account.

Kishen Bhatia: What's the difference between AS26 & Form 16/Form 16A? They both seem to contain identical information.

Anil Rego: It is easy to understand it this way:

I. Form 16 is your Salary and TDS Certificate issued by your employer.

II. Form 16A is applicable for TDS on Income Other than Salary.

III. Form-26AS gives you all the details of Tax deductions across all organisations that deducted tax for the PAN. It is a form which indicates that the tax that has been deducted has also been deposited with the Govt. 26AS will help you to cross verify the tax paid with your Form 16/16A from all organisations.

Venkatesh Krishnamurthy: I am a resident of Bengaluru. I and my family are relocating to US next month. We have made some investments in Post office (SB account and Term Deposit), LIC policies, pension policy in ICICI and PPF accounts in SBI. While we are planning to get our SB accounts in the Banks converted to NRO accounts, we aren't sure whether we can continue our post office accounts, PPF in SBI, Pension policy in ICICI Prudential and LIC policies. Request you kindly confirm if we can:

1. Continue to hold SB a/c and Term deposits in Post office?

Anil Rego: You can continue to hold these accounts. I would recommend that you close the SB account immediately and also the Term Deposit account (If the interest rate is not much higher than the current interest rates).

2. Continue to hold PPF accounts in SBI?

Anil Rego: You can continue to hold and invest in the existing PPF Account, i.e, the account opened when you were a Resident Indian.              

3. Continue our LIC policies?

Anil Rego: If you have purchased a LIC policy in India, you will be covered all throughout the term of the policy, irrespective of your place of residence. You will still be able to reap the benefits of your life insurance policy without any hindrance or complications.

4. Continue my ICICI prudential pension policy?

Anil Rego: Yes, you can continue the policy and during the company will issue a cheque and deliver it to your registered address. The payment will be made only in Indian Rupees.

Please mail your queries to getahead@rediff.co.in with the subject line 'Ask Anil' and he will answer all your income tax queries. 

You can find more of Mr Rego's answers here.

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