ITR 2025: Filing Income Tax Return First Time? These Are The Mistakes You Need To Avoid

Filing income tax returns (ITR) can be confusing but since it is an important part of managing your money, you need to be well versed with it and not make any errors while filing your ITR.

Many taxpayers, paying taxes for the first time can make mistakes which can delay refunds, invite tax notices and cause unnecessary stress.

What Mistakes Should You Avoid?

Here is a list of five commonly made mistakes that you should avoid while filing your income tax return:

Choosing The Wrong Form: Several taxpayers end up picking the wrong ITR form to file their returns. For example, if you have a simple salary of up to Rs 50 lakh, ITR-1 Form is for you. But in case you have more than one house and capital gains, you might need ITR-2 Form.

It is important to file the right form as filing the wrong form can delay your fund and also lead to a rejected return.

Not Reporting Your Full Income: For a lot of first timers, yet another commonly made mistake is that they forget to add the interest income from savings bank account, fixed deposit, or rent. Some others even miss small incomes from old bank accounts.

Hiding or forgetting any such income can lead to a notice or penalty later. Therefore, it is important to write down every source of income and include it in your ITR honestly.

Ignoring Form 26AS And AIS: It is very important to not forget the Form 26AS and AIS as these forms give a full picture of the taxes deducted and other financial details for the year. Many first timers, especially salaried people depend primarily on their Form 16 which is provided by their employer and they forget to check other key documents.

If you match these statements with your own records then it will be easier for you to file an accurate return and avoid mistakes and delays in refund.

Choosing The Wrong Assessment Year: When you are filing your income tax returns, you need to make sure that you are choosing the correct Assessment Year (AY) as entering the wrong AY might lead to notices and penalties from the Income Tax Department.

It is important to remember that the assessment year is when you are actually filing the return. Therefore, for the income earned in the financial year 2024-25, the assessment year will be 2025-26.

Submitting Fake Invoices: Often, in order to claim higher deductions, new taxpayers try to use fake bills under sections like 80C or 80D, or by submitting fake rent receipts to get more HRA. Some taxpayers even inflate the value of the actual bills.

The Income Tax Department keeps a strict watch and sends notices if such false claims are found. So it is advisable to claim only genuine deductions to avoid penalties.

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