CA Chirag Chauhan’s Post

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Practicing Chartered Accountant. Auditor. Tax Planning. GST. Wealth Management Advisory. Private Mediator and Councillor. Ex Deloitte Ex Kotak. CA. LLB (wip) 50K+ Followers

8 reasons why you should avoid filing your ITR free at negligible cost, like < Rs 500, etc, on private online portals! 1) Lack of Data Privacy—Most online sites claim they do not use your data, but there are no free lunches. Most of them may directly or indirectly sell your data! 2)Leakage of Crucial Income Tax data if the server is not encrypted. The personal and confidential income tax information, when compromised, would lead to severe consequences for the taxpayer 3) Data collected by free online return filing portals might be misused. Income tax information collected intended for return filing purposes can be misused and exploited by unethical people or businesses to take benefit of vulnerable people 4) Mis-selling products: The portal may use your information to cross-sell other products, such as insurance, under the guise of ‘saving tax’. It is not wrong to save tax, but it is better to evaluate, as most of the time, sites sell products in which they earn high commission 5) Sharing of income-related data can lead to cases of identity theft. Identity theft occurs when someone uses another’s personally identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission to commit fraud or other crimes One of the major categories of identity theft is tax identity theft. A common method is to use a person’s authentic name, address, PAN, and Aadhar to file a tax return with false information and have the resulting refund directly deposited into a bank account controlled by the thief. 6) No maker checker control while filing returns through free portals. The portal will accept any information from the taxpayer when filing, whether the information is accurate or not. Lack of maker checker controls in place will lead to the wrong filing of ITR’s 7) Forget to provide the necessary information in ITR Not many people are aware that there exist certain types of income for which your income tax liability is zero, and the same is required to be reported while filing ITR, like agriculture income, holding foreign bank accounts, etc 8) Validation of taxpayer information is done rarely. If the portal files the return in the wrong form, the tax officer, while processing the ITR form, may consider the return so filed as a defective return under the provision of section 139(9) of the Income Tax Act, leading to notice Hire a professional vs. online filing free—Paying professional fees and filing will not only avoid tax notices, but professionals also provide value-added services of saving tax beyond traditional ways by proper tax planning. The cost-benefit of hiring a professional is huge for Taxpayers.

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Raghavendra Chakka

CA, CS, FRM | Financial Risk Management| Sanātanī

1w

It’s always better to consult a professional for financial matters or health matters.

CA Radhika Jani

Mrs Radhika Jani Dave at Morgan Stanley

19h

Agreed

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CA Ankita Sarda

CA | CS | DISA | Robin💚

1w

So so so true 😀

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Very nice write up ✍️

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CA Devi Prasad Reddy

FCA | B.Com | Certified Concurrent Auditor

1d

Very informative!

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Deepak Ahluwalia

Partner at Deepak Ahluwalia & Co.

1w

Absolutely true

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