NRI - Tax filing process

If you are NRI and have any kind of income in India, you should file the income tax.

Types of income you can have are 

1. Passive income like rental, freelancing income
2. Dividend income
3. Capital gain tax after selling property or shares [To get these details from ICICIDirect, I had to call the call center as these statements are not provided through website for NRI]
4. PMS profit loss - audited report
5. Any Indian business income 

Here are the steps

1. Get form 26A (This form contains details of TDS - tax deducted at source) from https://nriservices.tdscpc.gov.in/nriapp/login.xhtml
2. To open form 26A, you will need to type your birthdate (ddmmyyyy format) as the password 
3. Then you can take help from https://cleartax.in/ or https://www.taxspanner.com/ to file the tax
4. I paid fees for these services online using ICICI bank's debit card. I found taxspanner bit cheaper than clear tax

If you want to file the tax by yourself, you will need to follow below steps.

1. Go to https://portal.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/
2. Download pre-filled XML from "My account" by specifying the ITR-2 form
3. If you upload the XML as it is, you will may get error saying "The XML Schema is invalid. Please upload the XML in the correct schema" - error at line no.1 One of '{""https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/master":"CreationInfo}' is expected
4. Reason why this error comes is you have not added correct details in the XML. To modify the xml you need to download the Java or Excel utility from https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/downloads/incomeTaxReturnUtilities
5. I used Java utility. To run the utility on linux or mac, you need to first modify the permission of the file ITR.sh to 777 by using command chmod 777 ITR.sh. Then run it by executing the command ./ITR.sh
6. Then GUI will open where you need to import the original XML and modify it. Once you hit submit, it will show errors if any. You need to fix the errors one by one.
7. Once all errors are fixed, you need to save the final XML and then upload it.
8. That's all. You are done! Enjoy! Do not forget to e-verify your return through netbanking. Also ensure that ITR status should  be "processed" after 1 month of filing the ITR and e-verification. If it's not, you will need to contact ITR processing unit to fix the issue.

ITR Java utility

What do you think on this topic? Please express your opinion or ask any question through comment below. You can write to me at reply2sagar@gmail.com