Efiling… No More A Myth…

As human beings, we are always surrounded by myths which we face on a day-today basis. One of the latest and widespread myths is about efiling of income tax return. Even the advancement of technology has not been able to remove the myth from our mind. The main reason why most people avoid to efile is because they are acting out of fear - fear for technology, and fear of the unknown and most important fear for personal data security. Contrary to popular belief, efiling is a simple process. It is the most safest and convenient way to file the income tax return. With the progress of technology, organizations have made the entire filing process automated. The efiling process is handled by secured servers eliminating the risk of errors and data theft. By the virtue of tradition and myth most people are accustomed to filing for taxes the traditional way - using paper forms. The problem with using paper forms to file for taxes is that there is a lot of room to make mistakes. Most of these mistakes are due to pure negligence, and can be easily avoided. When someone makes a mistake in the forms, that individual may be asked to file for tax returns again to rectify the mistake. By then, the deadline would have come and gone. If that is the case, the individual is liable for certain late penalties. The best way to avoid making mistakes while filing is to efile. Efile helps to reduce mistakes because everything is very systematic. It's almost like using a wizard on your computer. You are walked through the entire process in a step by step manner. If there are mandatory fields that you need to fill in, you won't be able to complete the submission, and the software will prompt you to fill in the necessary information. Sometimes, after filling in all the forms, you can check and recheck for mistakes. But when you want to send the physical forms out, you accidentally left one out. Again, that makes an incomplete submission. For sure, this won't happen if you choose to efile. If there is some information that you need, and you don't have it with you, you can always save your efile as a draft and come back to complete the process another time. All you need is to create an account with an efiling service provider or popularly known as efiling intermediary e.g. Taxsmile.com. Taxsmile.com is approved and authorized by Income Tax Department, Government of India. You can use your log in Id and password to log in and efile at any time before the scheduled time, virtually from anywhere in the world. Moreover as responsible human beings we have another responsibility towards our environment. Efiling helps in protecting the environment. To prepare the paper forms every year almost 75,000 trees are being cut. You can help save these trees by opting for efiling. Using your digital signature certificates, you can efile your income tax return online, making the complete filing process absolutely paperless. So start efiling from this year onwards. You will find the process most efficient and convenient.