New deadlines for Form 16, TDS statement 2019: Important dates, details taxpayers should know

In a relief to employers, the Income Tax department has extended the deadline for issuing Form 16 TDS certificate for the financial year 2018-19 to employees. In a recent decision, the I-T department has extended this deadline by 25 days till July 10. The extension, however, may hassle salaried taxpayers as they would be left with just 20 days to file their income tax returns. The deadline for filing ITR for AY 2019-20 is July 31.  In another major decision, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended the due date of filing of TDS (tax deducted at source) statement by employers to the Income Tax department in Form 24Q for the financial year 2018-19  till June 30, 2019. 

In an official statement released by the Ministry of Finance, CBDT said, "The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had earlier notified amended Form 24Q for filing TDS statement by deductors of tax vide Notification No. 36/2019 dated 12th April 2019. Subsequently, the File Validation Utility (FVU) for online filing of Form 24Q was updated by NSDL on 21st of May, 2019." CBDT said that the deadline is being extended to "redress genuine hardship of deductors in timely filing of TDS statement on account of revision of its format and consequent updating of the file validation utility for its online filing."

Important dates

Now, the due date of filing of TDS statement in Form 24Q for the financial year 2018-19 is June 30, 2019. 

For issuing TDS certificate in Form 16 for the financial year 2018-19, the new due date is  July 10, 2019.

What is Form 24Q?

Form 24Q reflects the details of the salary paid to employees and TDS deducted on such payment. Employers deduct TDS at the time of paying salary to an employee. Following this, the employer files salary TDS return in Form 24Q, which is submitted to the I-T department on a quarterly basis.