Register On TRACES (TDS) Website

TDS (Tax Deduction at Source) was initiated with the aim to collect tax from the very source itself. According to this concept, any person or company making a payment that exceeds a certain threshold limit must deduct the prescribed tax amount from the source before making the payment. The rate of tax or the threshold limit is determined by the Income Tax department. The person or company making the payment minus the TDS is called the ‘Deductor’ and the person or company receiving said payment is known as the ‘Deductee’.

In this process, it is the responsibility of the deductor to deduct the TDS before making the payment and thereafter remitting the deducted amount to the Central Government. The deductee, on the other hand, can claim the deducted amount at a later point of time by filing ITR. In a way, TDS is an advance tax that needs to be paid periodically.

As the Government of India has been digitalising every department recently, the Income Tax department initiated the TRACES website to organize and regulate the TDS stakeholders.

What is TRACES:

TRACES stands for TDS Reconciliation Analysis and Correction Enabling System. It is an online portal that works as an interface for the stakeholders related to the TDS system to carry out all their activities hassle-free. The website allows the viewing of challan status & statement status, downloading of Conso file, submitting a refund request, downloading Justification Report and form 16/16A. It also enables the user to view the annual tax credit statements (i.e. Form 26AS). All the services provided by TRACES is classified into three major categories:

• Deductor services
• Taxpayer services
• PAO (Pay and Accounts Office) services

Deductors/Collectors, Taxpayers and PAOs need to register in the TRACES website in order to be able to access and utilise the services provided for each category.

Services for Deductors/Collectors:

Deductors/Collectors will be able to:
• Check the status of challans.
• View TDS/TCS credit
• Verify PAN of the Taxpayers related to the deductor/collector
• Make online corrections

Services for Taxpayers:

Taxpayers can utilise the following services:
• View the annual tax credit for the TDS/TCS amount deducted by deductors (Form 26AS)
• Verify if the deductor has filed any statement for a certain FY or Quarter and see if their PAN is added in the deductor’s statement
• They can also download Form 16B as a buyer
• View and download aggregated TDS compliances report

Services for PAOs:

PAOs can avail the following services:
• There is a dashboard for PAOs that provides a summary of details relating to their Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO)
• See the statement status for TAN (Tax deduction and collection Account Number) linked to their Account Office Identification Number (AIN)

What is TRACES Justification Report:

A Justification report is a summarised report containing the details of the defaults/errors noted by the Income Tax Department while processing the statements that were filed by the deductor in a specific quarter of the year. The deductor needs to take it into account the next time they are filing a statement and correct those errors. These rectifications can be made by filing a correction statement along with the applicable fees.

How to register in TRACES:

A Deductor/Collector, Taxpayer or PAO can register in TRACES by the following step-by-step procedure:

STEP 1: Visit the Official website of TRACES – https://contents.tdscpc.gov.in/
STEP 2: Click on the ‘Register as New User’ tab and choose whether you want to register as a deductor/taxpayer/PAO.
STEP 3: Provide all the details in the appropriate columns like PAN details, Date of Birth/Date of incorporation, name of the taxpayer, etc.
STEP 4: Once you are done with all the 4 steps in the website, click on ‘proceed’.
STEP 5: A confirmation screen will appear to confirm the details provided by you. Click ‘Confirm’ once you verify all the details. There is also an edit tab available on the confirmation screen to go back and make corrections to the submitted data.
STEP 6: Once the details are confirmed, you will receive a link to your registered email and two distinct verification codes will be sent to your mail ID and your mobile number. Select the link in the mail and enter your user ID along with the two Activation codes you had received earlier.
STEP 7: A user ID and password will be generated once the registration is complete which can then be used for logging into the registered account for any activity.
From one TAN, a user can only register once in the TRACES website. Sometimes, the TAN you enter could be invalid while trying to register. It means that there has either not been any statements filed through that TAN previously or the statements filed till date were NIL statement.

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