The first quarter of a financial year is the time for ‘Investment Declaration’. In the period of April to June, your employer asks you to declare your tax-saving investments for the year to be able to deduct tax accordingly from your monthly salary. Investment declaration at the right time is important for you because it can lead to higher in-hand salary.
The important thing to note is that, in the beginning of the financial year, you just have to make an estimate of the investments that you intend to make in the coming months. These declarations are generally required to be made on the employer’s HR portal. You don’t need to submit actual proofs till the end of the financial year. You can actually invest less or more.
Investment Declaration is made on Form 12BB that has to be submitted at the end of the financial year. Please note that this form is NOT to be submitted to Income Tax Department, but has to be submitted to your employer.
It applies to all salaried taxpayers and has to be made for the following tax-saving investments and expenses:
1. House Rent Allowance (HRA)
In the first part of Form 12BB, you can fill the details required to claim tax deduction on HRA. To claim HRA, you need to provide details such as:
Name and address of landlord and actual rent paid.
If the rent paid during the year exceeds Rs. 1 lakh, you also need to provide PAN of landlord.
Rent receipts.
In case, if you are paying the rent by cash, you have to affix revenue stamp on the receipts.
If don’t know your HRA, you can use this simple HRA Calculator.
2. Leave Travel Concessions or Allowance (LTC/LTA)
Leave travel concession or leave travel allowance is paid to a salaried employee as per salary package and is applicable for domestic travel only.
Salaried employees also need to submit travel related expenditure proofs to their employers if they want to claim tax deduction on LTA/LTC.
The total expenditure being claimed as well the number of documents being submitted should be mentioned in Form 12BB.
3. Interest on Home Loan
To claim tax deduction on interest paid for home loan, you need to provide details like interest paid /payable, lender’s name, lender’s PAN in Form 12BB.
Stamp duty, registration fees and brokerage expenses paid towards transfer of the property can be claimed as deduction.
4. Deductions under Section 80C, 80CCC, 80CCD and 80D
Here is a quick list of deductions available under Section 80 that you can declare in Form 12BB.
80C: Premium to be paid for life insurance and/or investments to be made in ELSS funds, PPF, NPS and/or school tuition fees for children, etc
80CCC: Premium to be paid for annuity plan
80CCD: Additional contributions made to NPS
80D: Premium to be paid for medical insurance
80E: Interest to be paid on education loan
80G: Donations to be made to specified organizations
80TTA: Interest income earned from savings bank account
Not declared your investments on time?
If you have not declared your investments earlier and your employer has deducted excess TDS, then you can claim refund of excess TDS deducted by filing your income tax return.
Hope you found this article useful.
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