IT Return E-Filing Return Preparation Utility bug fixes & ITR-V Password

Its that time of the year where you keep looking for your Form 16, Investment details & what not. Thats because 31-Jul-09 is the last date for submitting your IT returns.

For those who would like to submit IT returns on their own (like me :-) without consulting a CA & use e-Filing, this post would be of some help.

I have written this post specifically dedicated to ITR-2 returns. There are some minor bugs in the ITR-2 Return Preparation Utility which are worth mentioning.

1. There are many cells with embedded formular which do not auto-populate. Take the example of Cell#J88 in sheet "PARTB - TI - TTI". Though it it supposed to automatically display the total Salary which you enter in "Schedule S", it sometimes shows "0" if all details like "Name of Employer", "PAN of employer (optional)", etc. are left blank. The workaround is to enter any non-blank value & then delete it. Though the fields are not expected to be left blank, but its a general human tendency that during rough work one doesn't fill in all details. Similarly there is the same problem at Cell#J44 in the sheet "HOUSE_PROPERTY", which shows "0" even after you have entered all relevant values.
2. Sometimes many formulas don't work & the workaround for this is to use last years Return Preparation Utility & use the "Import Previous Version" option in the sheet "PART A GENERAL". I would always suggest to use the import option if there has been no change in your residential address. Because the address line doesn't accept few special characters, which you might have correctly entered last year.
3. This years ITR-V (acknowledgment after you submit the return) PDF file comes in a zipped format. The PDF is also password protected. The PASSWORD is your PAN Number followed by your Date of Birth in the format mmddyyy, all in lower case (eg, aaser2131g31121970). After you generate the XML file & upload your return, the success screen has practically no information on the password. I downloaded the file & could not open the file as it was password protected. I then traced out the same by visiting the section My Account -> My Return on the Income Tax E-Filing Portal .
4. This year there has been a significant change in E-Filing for people who don't have a Digital Certificate. Rather than carrying the ITR-V printout to the Income Tax Office to receive a stamped acknowledgment, you need to just sign on the ITR-V printout & send it via ORDINARY POST (COURIER & REGISTERED POST NOT ACCEPTED) to -
INCOME TAX DEPARTMENT - CPC
POST BAG NO. - 1
ELECTRONIC CITY POST OFFICE
BANGALORE - 560 100
KARNATAKA

I hope this information would be of some help to the E-Filers :-)
Its really pathetic to find that in India most Call Centre employees of big Service Providers are still not trained to help Customers in the best possible way. Or to be more specific, they still can't handle tech-savvy customers like me.

Take the example of BPL Mobile, Mumbai, a few years back. The Call Centre staff were literally clueless on what was the feature CALL BARRING all about.

Today was another frustrating day for me talking to the Customer Service Executive at Vodafone Care, Mumbai. I called up Vodafone Care at 11:15 PM & insisted that my Vodafone Mobile Connect plan be deactivated from next billing cycle as 27th is my last day of my billing cycle. To my surprise the executive said that it was impossible for me to deactivate this plan from next billing cycle as it takes 2 hrs to deactivate the service after the deactivation SMS had been sent. And since the 2 hrs would mean that I cross-over to 28th, I would still be billed for the service. I requested him several times & he repeatedly kept saying that this was a defined process & he was helpless about it. I even said that nowhere in Vodafone site was it mentioned that to deactivate a service on the last day of billing cycle, the customer has to send the deactivation SMS by 10 PM (2 hrs prior to 12 AM). Out of frustration I just disconnected the call & start thinking.

The solution is very simple - just use My Vodafone from http://www.vodafone.in/myvodafone & deactivate your service from the My Services section. I did the same thing for my Vodafone Mobile Connect plan & believe me, the Service got deactivated within 5 mins.

Moral of the Story - Don't call up the customer care for any workarounds, use your own Brains... Happy Brainstorming :-)