Late Filing Fees and Penalty for TDS/TCS Statements for Asstt. Year 2015-16

Before understanding the penalty provisions for failure to furnish the statement of Tax Deducted at Source or statement of Tax Collected as Source (i.e. commonly known as TDS/TCS return) we shall first have a look at the few basic duties of a person liable to deduct/collect tax at source and due dates for filing of TDS/TCS return.

Duties of the person liable to deduct/collect tax at source

• He shall obtain Tax Deduction Account Number or Tax Collection Account Number (as the case may be) and quote the same in all the documents pertaining to TDS/TCS.
• He shall deduct/collect the tax at source at the applicable rate.
• He shall pay the tax deducted/collected by him to the credit of the Government.
• He shall file the periodic TDS/TCS statements, i.e., TDS/TCS return.
• He shall issue the TDS/TCS certificate in respect of tax deducted/collected by him.

Due Dates for filing of TDS/TCS return

The due dates for filing of statement of TDS i.e. TDS return for different quarters are as follows:

Now we will understand the provisions relating to penalty for not furnishing the TDS/TCS statement i.e. TDS/TCS return. 

Basic provisions

A person who fails to file the TDS/TCS return or does not file the TDS/TCS return by the due dates prescribed in this regard has to pay late filing fees as provided under section 234E and apart from late filing fees he shall be liable to pay penalty under section 271H.  In this part you can gain knowledge about the provisions of section 234E and section 271H.

Late filing fees under section 234E

As per section 234E, where a person fails to file the TDS/TCS return on or before the due date prescribed in this regard, then he shall be liable to pay, by way of fee, a sum of Rs. 200 for every day during which the failure continues. The amount of late fees shall not exceed the amount of TDS. TDS/TCS return cannot be filed without payment of late filing fees as discussed above. In other words, the late filing fees shall be deposited before filing the TDS return. It should be noted that Rs. 200 per day is not penalty but it is a late filing fee