Filing the form, screen by screen
In this chapter: Personal information, bank accounts, nominee for refund · Income from salary section — gross, exempt, deductions u/s 16 · Income from house property and from other sources · Computation, advance tax, and TDS reconciliation
On the income-tax portal, go to "File ITR" → select Assessment Year → Online filing → Individual → ITR-1. The form has five tabs in order: Personal Info, Gross Income, Total Deductions, Tax Paid, Total Tax Liability. Walk through them sequentially. Most fields auto-populate from your saved profile, Form 16, and AIS. Your job is verification, not data entry.
In Personal Info: ensure your address, contact, and primary bank account (for refund) are correct — refunds go only to a pre-validated bank account. In Gross Income: salary section needs the breakup from Form 16 (Section 17(1) gross, Section 10 exempt allowances like HRA/LTA, deductions under Section 16 like standard deduction and professional tax). House property section needs annual value, municipal tax paid, and home-loan interest. In Other Sources, declare bank interest separately (as it is taxable but you may take 80TTA on savings interest only). In Total Deductions, verify each 80C/80D/80E line against actual investments. The tax calculation runs automatically.
Two screens that trip people up: (1) the bank-account section requires you to mark which one receives the refund — the portal only releases refunds to pre-validated accounts (validation requires linking via the portal or your bank net-banking). (2) The "tax paid" tab shows TDS, advance tax, and self-assessment tax — these auto-pull from 26AS but you should manually verify if any TDS challan didn't make it to 26AS yet (it can take 7-15 days post-deduction). If you find a missing TDS, contact the deductor first; do not proceed to file with a known mismatch.