First Time Filing Income Tax? Here's What I Wish I'd Known
A junior colleague at a Bengaluru startup — let's call her R — pinged me on a Tuesday night in early July. She'd received three emails from her payroll team that week, each with a slightly different tone of urgency. One had "Action Required" in red. One had the words "before 31st July" bolded twice. The third was forwarded from a CA the company had loosely tied up with, and it contained a PDF attachment called ITR_Filing_Checklist_v3_FINAL.pdf that was, somehow, fourteen pages long.
R had joined her first full-time job in August 2025. This was her first time filing income tax. She had a Form 16, a vague sense that there was an "old regime" and a "new regime", and a great deal of anxiety. She'd opened incometax.gov.in twice and closed it both times. "It looks like the inside of a 2009 government website that learned what gradients are," she texted me. Fair.
We spent about 40 minutes on a call. By the end of it she had filed, e-verified, and was getting a refund of just over ₹8,000. The thing is — almost none of her actual confusion was about tax law. It was about which screen to click, what a piece of paper meant, why the portal wouldn't accept her bank account, and whether the regime decision was reversible (it is, for salaried folks, every year).
This guide is the call I had with R, written out. Not steps 1 through 12. Just the questions she actually asked, in the order she asked them, with the answers I gave. If you're filing for the first time for FY 2025-26 (assessment year 2026-27), with the deadline of July 31, 2026looming, I think it'll be more useful than another checklist.
ITR for FY 2025-26 — The Numbers You Need
- Filing deadline (non-audit): July 31, 2026
- Belated return deadline: December 31, 2026
- Basic exemption — new regime: ₹3,00,000
- Basic exemption — old regime: ₹2,50,000
- Standard deduction (new regime, salaried): ₹75,000
- Section 80C cap (old regime only): ₹1,50,000
- Late filing fee under Section 234F: ₹1,000 (income < ₹5L) or ₹5,000
- Portal: incometax.gov.in
Old vs New Regime — At a Glance
This was R's first real question, and I'll bet it's yours too. Don't worry about the philosophical "which is better" debate online — it depends entirely on your numbers. Here's how the two stack up for FY 2025-26.
What nobody tells first-time salaried filers
If you're salaried with no business income, you can switch between old and new regime every year. So your choice this July is not a life commitment. It only locks in if you have business or professional income — then a switch back to new regime is one-time. For R, and probably you, change your mind freely. Pick whichever gives the lower tax this year. Re-decide next July.
The Questions R Actually Asked
These came in order, roughly. I've kept them in the same order because each answer builds on the previous one. Skim or read straight through.
Do I even need to file an ITR? My employer already cut TDS.
If your gross total income (before deductions) crosses the basic exemption — ₹3 lakh under the new regime, ₹2.5 lakh under the old regime — you are legally required to file, regardless of whether TDS was deducted. TDS is just a prepayment of tax; filing is how you reconcile and either claim a refund of excess TDS or pay the shortfall. Even if your income is below the limit, you should file in any year you had TDS cut (you can't get the refund without filing), or if you have a foreign asset, or if your electricity bill crossed ₹1 lakh in the year. For a first-time salaried filer at a startup, the answer is almost always: yes, file.
Old regime or new regime — how do I decide without doing a spreadsheet?
Quick rule of thumb: if your total 80C + 80D + HRA + home loan interest claims add up to more than about ₹3.5–4 lakh a year, the old regime is probably better. Otherwise the new regime almost always wins because of the ₹75,000 standard deduction and lower slab rates. Most first-time filers in their first or second year of work don't have a home loan, haven't maxed 80C, and aren't paying much rent against HRA. For them the new regime is the default. The portal lets you compute both before you submit, so you can change your mind right up until you hit verify.
My Form 16 has a typo / a wrong number / a missing entry. What now?
Don't file with a bad Form 16 and don't 'just adjust it' in the ITR. Email your HR or payroll team and ask them to issue a corrected Form 16. If the issue is that they forgot a deduction you submitted proofs for in January, they'll usually revise within a week. If the company has shut down or HR is unresponsive, file based on your actual numbers from payslips and AIS — but keep written proof of the mismatch. The Form 16 is your employer's claim about what they paid and deducted. The ITR is your claim. If they don't match, the department goes by the ITR but may issue a query later.
What is Form 26AS and AIS and why are they different from Form 16?
Form 26AS is the tax department's record of every tax credit linked to your PAN — TDS from salary, TDS from FD interest, advance tax you paid, tax refunds. The AIS (Annual Information Statement) is broader: it lists almost every financial transaction reported against your PAN, including dividends, mutual fund redemptions, savings interest, and large purchases. Before you file, open both from incometax.gov.in and reconcile them against your Form 16 and your own records. Mismatches are the single biggest reason ITRs get queried later. If AIS shows interest income from a bank you forgot, declare it — they already know.
Why is the portal asking about my bank account when I'm getting a refund?
Because refunds are now direct-credit only, and only to a 'pre-validated' bank account linked to your PAN. Go to Profile → My Bank Account, add your primary account, and click pre-validate. The portal checks with your bank within a minute or two. Also tick 'nominate for refund' — without that flag, even a validated account won't receive the refund. If your account isn't pre-validated by the time the refund is processed, the refund sits in limbo and you raise a grievance to redirect it. Save yourself that trouble.
I'm a freelancer with no Form 16. Am I filing the same form?
Probably not. Salaried people use ITR-1 (Sahaj) if income is under ₹50 lakh and from salary + one house property + interest. Freelancers or consultants with professional income usually file ITR-4 (Sugam) under the presumptive scheme (Section 44ADA) if gross receipts are under ₹75 lakh — you declare 50% of receipts as profit and pay tax on that, no books needed. If you don't want presumptive, or your receipts exceed the limit, you'll file ITR-3 with actual books. For a first-time freelancer with under ₹75 lakh in receipts and no complications, ITR-4 with 44ADA is the cleanest path.
What deductions can I actually claim? Everyone keeps mentioning 80C.
Only relevant if you pick the old regime — the new regime mostly does away with these in exchange for higher slabs and the ₹75,000 standard deduction. Under old regime: 80C covers EPF contributions (already in your payslip), ELSS mutual funds, life insurance premiums, PPF, and home loan principal — capped at ₹1.5 lakh total. 80D covers health insurance premiums — ₹25,000 for self/family, another ₹50,000 if you pay for senior-citizen parents. 80TTA gives ₹10,000 against savings account interest. HRA is separate and computed off rent receipts. The trap: people add up theoretical numbers and convince themselves old regime is better, then can't produce proofs. Only claim what you can document.
How do I actually verify after filing? Aadhaar OTP?
Yes — Aadhaar OTP is the fastest and what most people use. After submitting the ITR, the portal asks how you want to verify. Pick 'e-verify using Aadhaar OTP', and an OTP arrives on the mobile linked to your Aadhaar. Enter it, done. The ITR isn't actually filed until verification is complete — submission without verification is treated as if you never filed. You have 30 days from submission to e-verify. If your Aadhaar mobile is inactive, alternatives are net-banking login verification or the old-school 'send signed ITR-V by post to CPC Bengaluru' which is slow and clunky.
I'm going to miss July 31. How bad is it?
Not catastrophic, but not free. You can file a belated return up to December 31, 2026 for AY 2026-27, but you'll pay a late filing fee under Section 234F — ₹1,000 if your total income is under ₹5 lakh, ₹5,000 above that. You also lose the ability to carry forward most losses, and any tax due accrues interest under Section 234A from August 1. If you're getting a refund, the refund just gets delayed; if you owe tax, the interest is the painful part. File on time if you possibly can — but if you've missed July 31, file belated rather than skipping. Skipping invites notices.
Frankly, the income tax portal has improved a lot in the last two years. Pre-filled returns now actually work for most salaried people — your Form 16 data, your bank interest from AIS, even your dividend receipts show up before you start typing. The hard part is no longer data entry. It's knowing which of the pre-filled numbers to trust and which to override.
My honest view, after helping a few dozen first-timers over the years: don't pay a CA ₹2,000 to file your first salaried return. Do it yourself once. You'll never again feel mystified by an IT notice or a payslip line item. The act of filling each field — even slowly, even with confusion — is genuinely educational in a way that handing it off to someone never is. If your situation is complex (business income, capital gains across asset classes, foreign income), then yes, get help. For a clean salaried first return, you can do this.
— Sibin O, Founder, NagrikIQ · Bengaluru
Also see: Our File Income Tax Return tool walks you through the right ITR form for your situation and links directly to the matching page on incometax.gov.in. Useful if you're still not sure whether you're an ITR-1 or ITR-4 person.
One last thing. The first ITR feels disproportionately scary because you have no baseline — no "last year's return" to compare against, no muscle memory for the screens. Once you're through it, the next ten years are almost copy-paste. Spend the 90 minutes this July. Get your refund. Move on with your life. And if R's call was any indication — block out time on a weeknight, not a Sunday afternoon. You'll think more clearly with a deadline of bedtime than with a whole day stretching ahead.
— Sibin O, Founder, NagrikIQ
Ready to File Your First ITR?
Use our guided tool to figure out the right form and head straight to the correct portal page.
Start Filing →