ITR-1 PDF Form Doesn’t Generate Correct XML

All those of you who are filing IT returns online for Assessment Year (A.Y.) 2010-11 using the ITR-1 PDF utility available on the IT Department’s website, please use the Excel ITR-1 utility instead. The PDF utility for A.Y. 2010-11 does not generate the correct XML!!!

And the worst part is, most people will not realise the problem until they have uploaded the XML file and received the ITR-V acknowledgement!

Here are a few problems that I observed:

1. If you have paid Self-Assessment Tax more than once, all your challans will not be recorded in the XML file generated by the PDF utility, even though you may have mentioned all the challans correctly in the PDF form.

   This can create problems for you, as the IT Dept. may think that you are claiming a higher amount as Self-Assessment Tax paid than what you have given the break-up for.

2. “Deductions under Chapter VI-A”, “Total income”, “Net tax payable” and “Total tax and interest payable” fields in the XML file are not populated. As a result, the fields are blank even in the ITR-V form (see below image)!

   

   In my view, this is quite outrageous! The ITR-V is an important document which is required for applying for loans, etc. Mistakes in this can potentially cause a lot of agony.

3. If you click on “Generate XML” in the PDF utility, then close and reopen it, and click on “Import from XML”, some of the fields are not populated. This is again due to the fact that all the data is not exported to the XML file.

I did not face any such issues with the Excel utility, but in general, I would urge all of you to just go through the generated XML file before submitting it to the IT Dept. website. You can open the XML file in any web browser such as Firefox or IE.