Form 24Q TDS Return Filing — Salary TDS Guide

Overview

Form 24Q is the quarterly statement of tax deducted at source on salary payments, filed under Section 192 of the Income-tax Act, 1961. Every employer who deducts TDS from salaries — companies, LLPs, firms, trusts, government departments, even individuals with staff — must file it once a quarter, reporting each employee's PAN, the salary paid, the tax deducted, and the challans through which the tax reached the government.

The form has two parts. Annexure I, filed with all four quarters, carries deductee-wise TDS details and challan information. Annexure II, filed only with the January–March quarter, carries the complete salary computation for every employee: gross salary, allowances, perquisites, Chapter VI-A deductions, other income declared, and the final tax liability. Form 16 Part B is built from this Q4 annexure — so your employees' Form 16s are only as accurate as your Q4 24Q.

Filing is electronic, through a validated FVU (File Validation Utility) file generated from NSDL's RPU (Return Preparation Utility), uploaded on the income-tax e-filing portal or through a TIN facilitation centre. Each quarter's return is tied to your TAN, and branches with separate TANs file separately.

Is Form 24Q filing right for your situation?

This service is for you if:

• You are an employer — company, LLP, firm, trust, startup, or government office — that deducts TDS on salary under Section 192.
• You run payroll in-house or through a provider but want the TDS return handled by tax professionals who reconcile it to the last rupee.
• You've received a TRACES default notice (short deduction, short payment, interest demand) and need it diagnosed and fixed.
• You need correction statements filed for earlier quarters — wrong PANs, unmapped challans, missing employees.
• You want Form 16s issued to employees on time, without the annual March–May scramble.

Consider alternatives if:

• You only deduct TDS on vendor payments, rent, or professional fees (no salaries) — you need Form 26Q filing instead.
• You make payments to non-residents — that is Form 27Q territory.
• You are an employee wanting to check your own TDS credit — you need Form 26AS/AIS, not a filing service; but we can help you read it.

What must be gathered before filing

Good 24Q filing starts with clean inputs. Before each quarter's return, we collect and verify:

• Payroll data for the quarter — employee-wise gross salary, perquisites, allowances, and tax deducted, from your payroll system or salary registers.
• Challan details — BSR code, serial number, date, amount and section (192A/192B/192C) for every TDS payment in the quarter. Challans are matched to deductee totals before filing; surplus is carried forward.
• Employee PANs and declarations — PAN for every deductee (missing PANs trigger 20% TDS under Section 206AA), plus Form 12BB investment and rent declarations, regime choice (old vs new under Section 115BAC), and any other income or loss the employee has declared for Section 192(2B) adjustment.
• Q4 extras (Annexure II) — full-year salary breakup, Chapter VI-A deduction evidence, HRA exemption computation, final per-employee tax computation.

Advantages of getting 24Q filing right

Your employees' Form 16s come out clean

Form 16 Part A is generated on TRACES directly from your 24Q data; Part B flows from your Q4 Annexure II. Accurate 24Q filing means employees get correct Form 16s by 15 June, file their ITRs without mismatches, and stop coming back to HR with 26AS complaints in July.

The ₹200-a-day clock never starts

Section 234E's late fee is mechanical — ₹200 per day of delay, with no discretion and no waiver. A single missed quarter for a 50-person company can cost more than a full year of professional filing fees. Quarterly discipline keeps that exposure at zero.

TRACES defaults get caught before they become demands

Short deductions, short payments, challan mismatches and PAN errors surface as defaults on TRACES and turn into interest and penalty demands if ignored. Filing from reconciled data — and checking the justification report after every filing — closes these gaps while they are still small.

Corrections stay routine instead of becoming crises

Employees join mid-year, resign, submit declarations late, or get salary arrears. Correction statements let you fix all of this on TRACES. Done quarterly and promptly, corrections are a ten-minute job; done after a notice arrives, they are a forensic exercise.

Salary TDS reflects the right regime for every employee

Since the new regime became the default, every employee's TDS depends on an individual choice between the old and new slabs. The employer must apply each person's declared choice — and recompute when declarations change. We build regime tracking into the quarterly workflow so nobody's TDS is computed on the wrong slab, and the file stays ready for statutory audit or due diligence without a scramble.

Documents required

Deductor documents

• TAN of the deductor (separate return per TAN/branch), PAN, and registered address
• Details of the person responsible for deduction (name, designation, contact)

Quarterly inputs

• Employee-wise salary and TDS data for the quarter (payroll export or salary register)
• Challan counterfoils or e-payment receipts: BSR code, challan number, date, amount, section code
• New joinee and exit details for the quarter

Employee declarations (collected by you, processed by us)

• Form 12BB: investment declarations, HRA rent receipts, home-loan interest certificates
• Regime choice: old vs new regime under Section 115BAC, per employee
• Other income or house-property loss declared for Section 192(2B) adjustment
• Previous employer's Form 12B / salary details for employees who joined mid-year

Q4 only (Annexure II)

• Full-year salary breakup per employee, Chapter VI-A deduction evidence, final tax computation

Form 24Q filing process — step by step

Step 1 — Payroll data intake and sanity checks

We take your quarter's payroll export and check it for the errors that cause most TRACES defaults: employees with missing or invalid PANs, negative TDS figures, TDS deducted but salary showing zero, and employees appearing twice. Anything odd is flagged back to you before it goes anywhere near the return.

Step 2 — Challan matching and surplus mapping

Every challan is verified — BSR code, serial number, date, amount — and mapped against deductee totals. Surplus is tagged and carried to the next quarter; shortfalls are quantified with their interest implication before you deposit the balance.

Step 3 — TDS computation review (regime-wise)

We verify the tax computed per employee against the declared regime — new-regime slabs for FY 2025-26 (nil to ₹4 lakh, up to 30% above ₹24 lakh, 87A rebate to ₹12 lakh, ₹75,000 standard deduction) or old-regime slabs with deductions. Perquisite valuations and HRA exemption math get a second look here.

Step 4 — Return preparation in the RPU utility

The validated data goes into NSDL's Return Preparation Utility to generate the FVU file — Annexure I for every quarter, plus Annexure II for Q4. Section codes are assigned correctly (192A for government employees other than Union Government, 192B for non-government employees, 192C for Union Government employees).

Step 5 — FVU validation and error clearance

The FVU file is run through the File Validation Utility. Every error and warning is cleared — this is the step that separates a return that gets accepted from one that bounces. We don't upload a file with unresolved errors.

Step 6 — Upload and acknowledgement

The clean FVU is uploaded on the e-filing portal (or through a TIN-FC), and the provisional receipt and Form 27A-equivalent acknowledgement are saved to your records. Government deductors sign with DSC; others follow the applicable verification route.

Step 7 — TRACES confirmation and Form 16 Part A

After processing, we download the TRACES justification report, confirm zero defaults, and pull Form 16 Part A for each employee. For Q4, Part B is prepared from Annexure II data — complete Form 16s with you before 15 June.

Step 8 — Correction statements, when needed

If anything changes — a late declaration, a PAN correction, a challan reallocation — we file correction statements on TRACES the same quarter, not after a notice forces it.

How long does it take?

| Stage | Typical time | |---|---| | Data intake and query resolution | 2–3 working days (depends on how fast inputs arrive) | | Challan matching and TDS review | 1–2 working days | | RPU preparation and FVU validation | 1 working day | | Upload, acknowledgement, TRACES confirmation | 1–2 working days | | Form 16 Part A download + Part B preparation (Q4) | 3–5 working days after Q4 filing |

A routine quarter is typically turned around within a week of receiving complete data. Q4 takes longer because of Annexure II and Form 16 preparation — starting the Q4 data collection in early April avoids the May rush.

Form 16 — Part A, Part B, and the 15 June deadline

This is the section most employers search for, so let's settle it completely.

Form 16 is the annual TDS certificate an employer issues under Section 203, and it has two parts that come from two different places. Part A contains the TDS summary — employer and employee details, PANs, the assessment year, and the quarter-wise tax deducted and deposited. It is generated on TRACES from your filed 24Q statements, carries a unique certificate number, and must be downloaded and issued to each employee. If your 24Q is wrong or late, Part A is wrong or missing.

Part B is the salary annexure — gross salary broken into basic, allowances and perquisites, exempt allowances, deductions under Chapter VI-A, other income, and the final tax computation. The employer prepares it, and the correct source for every number in it is the Q4 Annexure II you filed. Preparing Part B from payroll estimates instead of the filed Annexure II is how mismatches are born.

Both parts must reach the employee by 15 June following the financial year (Rule 31). Our Q4 workflow is built backwards from that date: 24Q filed by 31 May, Part A downloaded from TRACES in early June, Part B prepared from Annexure II data — complete Form 16s with you well before the deadline.

Annexure II — the Q4 deep-dive that decides Form 16 Part B

Annexure II is filed only with the January–March quarter, and it is the most detail-heavy part of the entire 24Q cycle. For every employee it requires: gross salary with breakup, value of perquisites, profits in lieu of salary, exempt allowances (HRA, conveyance, and the rest), deductions under Chapter VI-A with section-wise amounts, income or loss from house property and other sources declared by the employee, and the final tax computation including rebate, surcharge and cess.

Three things routinely go wrong here. First, perquisite valuation — company car, accommodation, ESOPs — done on approximate figures instead of Rule 3 valuation, which changes the tax. Second, Chapter VI-A deductions claimed without matching Form 12BB evidence, which collapses under scrutiny. Third, employees who joined mid-year whose previous employer's salary and TDS (Form 12B details) never got included, understating total income.

We treat Annexure II as its own workstream: a separate checklist goes out in early April, perquisite and deduction figures are verified against evidence, and each computation is reconciled to the full year's TDS before the FVU is generated.

24Q vs 26Q vs 27Q — which form is yours?

| | Form 24Q | Form 26Q | Form 27Q | |---|---|---|---| | What it reports | TDS on salary (Sec 192) | TDS on non-salary payments to residents (Secs 192A–194LA) | TDS on payments to non-residents | | Typical deductor | Any employer | Businesses paying vendors, contractors, landlords, professionals | Anyone paying NRIs or foreign companies | | Annexures | I (all quarters) + II (Q4 only) | Single annexure | Single annexure | | Certificate issued | Form 16 (annual, by 15 June) | Form 16A (quarterly) | Form 16A (quarterly) | | Due dates | 31 Jul / 31 Oct / 31 Jan / 31 May | Same four dates | Same four dates |

If you deduct both salary and vendor TDS, you file both 24Q and 26Q — they are separate returns with separate challan mappings. Salary never goes into 26Q, and vendor payments never go into 24Q.

Fees and packages

| | Starter | Growth | Scale | |---|---|---|---| | Best for | Up to 10 employees | 11–100 employees | 100+ employees, multi-TAN | | Quarterly 24Q filing (4 quarters) | Included | Included | Included | | Challan matching and reconciliation | Included | Included | Included | | Q4 Annexure II + Form 16 preparation | Included | Included | Included | | Correction statements | 2 per year | Unlimited | Unlimited | | TRACES default diagnosis and resolution | — | Included | Included | | Dedicated compliance manager | — | — | Included |

Fees depend on headcount, number of TANs, and correction history. Share your employee count and we'll quote a fixed annual fee — no per-quarter surprises.

How ComplyKart helps

• Quarterly filing, end to end — data intake, challan matching, RPU preparation, FVU validation, upload, and TRACES confirmation, every quarter.
• Payroll-TDS reconciliation — your 24Q is tied to your payroll and your challans to the rupee, so TRACES defaults don't appear.
• Q4 and Form 16 management — Annexure II workstream, Form 16 Part A downloads, Part B preparation, and issue-ready certificates before 15 June.
• Corrections and defaults — correction statements on TRACES, short-deduction and short-payment default resolution, interest computation and closure.
• Regime and declaration tracking — old vs new regime per employee, Form 12BB processing, mid-year joiner salary consolidation.

What we do not do: we don't run your payroll or compute monthly salaries (that's our payroll processing service); we don't give personal tax-planning advice to individual employees beyond their TDS computation; and we don't represent you before assessing officers in scrutiny — though we prepare the documentation you'd need.

What happens after filing

Within 30 days: the return is processed on TRACES; we check the justification report for defaults. Employees start seeing the quarter's TDS credit in Form 26AS and AIS. Any short-payment interest is quantified and closed.

Within 6 months: the full year's cycle completes with Q4 and Form 16 issuance. Correction windows for earlier quarters are used or consciously closed. Your payroll-TDS records for the year are archived — challan mappings, FVU files, acknowledgements, and TRACES reports — ready for statutory or tax audit.

Recurring compliance

• Quarterly: Form 24Q by 31 July, 31 October, 31 January, 31 May.
• Monthly: TDS deposit by the 7th of the following month (30 April for March).
• Annual: Form 16 issue by 15 June; Annexure II with Q4.
• Event-based: correction statements when data changes; TRACES default resolution when notices arrive; TAN updates when branches open or close.

Common mistakes we fix every quarter

• PAN errors — a single wrong digit in an employee's PAN blocks their TDS credit and flags a TRACES default. We validate PANs before filing, not after.
• Unmapped or wrongly mapped challans — TDS deposited under the wrong section code (194C instead of 192B, for instance) or challans left unmapped, creating phantom short payments.
• Ignoring the 234E clock — treating a late quarter as a minor delay. At ₹200 a day with no waiver, a "we'll file it next month" habit is an expensive one.
• Part B from estimates — preparing Form 16 Part B from payroll summaries instead of the filed Annexure II, producing certificates that don't match department records.
• No-PAN employees at slab rates — deducting at normal rates for employees who never submitted PAN. Section 206AA requires 20%; the shortfall becomes the employer's liability with interest.

Sources

This page is built from the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Sections 192, 200, 201, 203, 206AA, 234E, 271H), the Income-tax Rules, 1962 (Rules 30, 31, 31A, 31AA; Forms 24Q, 16, 12BB), CBDT notifications and circulars on TDS administration, and the NSDL/TRACES e-filing utilities and procedures. Rates and thresholds reflect Finance Act, 2025 (FY 2025-26). We re-verify every figure each quarter against the bare Act and current utilities before filing season; anything we could not verify from a primary source is flagged [NEEDS VERIFICATION] in our register, not stated as fact.