Interesting pointers on Income Tax - filing of it returns

All are equal but some are more equal. We have all heard this before right?

Here is something that goes to prove that!

If you are an employee, the employer does a deduction of tax at source (TDS) and pays it to the Income tax department. At the end of the financial year, the employee is supposed to get a statement (Form 16) from the employer with all the details of the salaries paid and the taxes deducted and paid to the income tax department.

There are employers who do the TDS and may not have paid all the deductions to the IT department. They must pay all of it before 31st march and then only they can give the form 16 to the employees. The employees will file their income tax returns with the IT department by 31st July.

What happens in the case where employer has not given the form 16 to the employee? Here are couple of scenarios, I am sure you won't like it.

Employee files the IT returns with the IT department based on his/her knowledge and if the tax calculations show that the employer has not paid the TDS to the IT department, the employee will have to pay that though the employer has already deducted the tax (but not paid to the government). The government does has to get its does - does not matter if the employer has defaulted, the employee has to even pay interest on the tax that should have been paid but not paid. How wonderful. On one end, an employer who gets away scotch free in spite of not adhering to the rules and regulations and on the other hand, you have the employee who has to practically pay up taxes again!

What are the options?

1. The employee finds out online how much tax has been credited into his account (there is an online facility by the IT department) and calculates the taxes with the help of an auditor, finds out if there is a short payment by the employer (yes, the employer has deducted at source) and pays up and files the returns.

2. The employee gets the employer to pay him/her the tax amount deducted but not paid to the IT department and pays it to the IT department directly and files the returns.

Let me have your thoughts!

Worst shopping experience in Total Mall - Mysore Road

I should have posted this quite some time ago, being the lazy guy I am, it took time.

A few weeks ago, I visited Total Mall on Mysore Road (quite close to the flyover that takes you to Bangalore city corporation).

It was a weekday. I hate going to malls on weekends. The malls are crowded, noisy, stifling and long queues at the billing counter. You can finish your shopping in 15-20 minutes and wait for may be another 15-20 minutes at the billing counter, worst still, it can take you more than 30 minutes to get out of the billing counter.

First and foremost, the A/Cs were off. You know what happens when there is no air conditioning in a closed environment. The air was stuffy, odd smell and obviously people were sweating. The way they have arranged the racks is totally absurd. You have to move from one end to the other end to find an item. At the billing counter, it took me more than 45 minutes. Why is that? There were only few counters that were open and they had long winding queues!


I strongly suggest, never ever visit Total mall. Such a waste of time and unpleasant and rude people.

Jumping the line in Hospitals and Diagnostic Centres Too!

I had to get some tests done for one of my family members. I went to a very popular and reputed diagnostics center on Rajkumar road in Rajajinagar (Bangalore west).

The diagnostics center is a fairly well organized and we are sort of regulars for any laboratory tests that need to be done irrespective of which doctor, specialist recommends the tests.

Today, should have been no different! But it was a different experience.

In the billing section, usually, there used to be 3-4 people attending to the customers/patients. Today, there were only 2 of them. The billing took some time.

After the billing, the counter where they take the blood samples used to have 2 people manning the operations. Today, there was only one!

There were many people waiting for their turn and the queue went on building up. There were old people, there were sick people, there were kids.......

As usual, the person coordinating the blood/urine samples was calling names in the order in which he/she received them, well, I thought so! We were waiting for quite sometime and out of the blue a hale and healthy man walks in, has a brief chat with the coordinator (I don't know what they call his function/role) and went ahead and gave his blood sample. This was totally out of turn! 

As I said before, there were many waiting and this is totally wrong! I don't normally get upset, but I did lose my cool! I went and told the coordinator, this is not right. Don't give preferential treatment, just make sure that people are attended in order. Then, things started moving in the right manner.

Question is,
why do we put up with these kind of things everyday?
Do we have to go on fighting for what is right?
Why should there be such discrimination, even in hospitals and diagnostic centers?

I have seen this in places of worship, government offices...... you name it, it happens, every day!

I don't care if this guy thought I was rude! I meant to be rude and had to make him understand that what he was doing was wrong.


If you have had similar experiences, please share your thoughts!

Srinath