Planning to File Your Income Tax Return Early? Here’s Why Experts Say You Should Wait Until June 15
As the debate is raging around as to why one should not file income tax returns (ITR) before June 15, 2026 for AY 2026-27.
The Income Tax Return (ITR) filing season for Assessment Year (AY) 2026-27 has kicked off and many taxpayers are keen to submit their income tax returns as soon as they can. Several ITR forms and utility have been already made available by the Income Tax Department and individuals can start filing returns. But taxpayers with multiple incomes and salaried taxpayers have been urged by the tax experts to wait at least till June 15 before filing their income tax returns.
The main one is straightforward enough: important tax data might not have been entirely entered into the system.
Form 16 is one of the key documents that is essential for the right filing of income tax for salaried employees. The employers have to submit Form 16 after the TDS reporting deadline of June 15. This document provides information about salary income, tax deducted at source (TDS), exemptions, deductions and other details that are useful for the taxpayers to file accurate tax returns. If one files before receiving Form 16 there is a risk of error in reporting.
One of the main concerns is the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Form 26AS. The Income Tax Department uses these documents to cross-check what taxpayers report on their tax returns. These consist of information like bank interest, dividend income, TDS credits, transactions in securities, mutual funds and other financial transactions. Many banks, employers and financial institutions, however, are still making updates to this information until the end of May and early June. This means that the financial details in AIS and Form 26AS may not be comprehensive in the first few weeks of the filing season.
Experts advise that a return be filed after these records are updated to avoid any discrepancies between the information on the return and what’s in the tax department’s records. These issues may lead to notices, refund delays, or filing revised returns later.
This is especially important for those who have income other than salary. Those receiving fixed deposit interest and those receiving rental income, capital gains, dividends, freelance income and other income should be particularly careful. The information on these transactions could come from a variety of sources at various times and waiting till mid-June gives better information in the official records before the process is initiated.
Filing early is a good financial practice, but experts advise that it is more important to get it right than to get it fast. The due date for filing ITR for most individual taxpayers is still a couple of weeks away, which will give sufficient time to the taxpayers to review all documents and information before submitting ITR.
To sum up, taxpayers must make it a point to collect documents, confirm the income details and cross-check information in AIS and Form 26AS in the current period. After the issuance of Form 16 and complete updation of financial records, the process of filing of the return becomes much easier and less error prone.
A small delay until after June 15 for those who wish to file their ITR for AY 26-27 might be worth avoiding the much bigger complications later on.
