u/Tax_Alchemist

Any young professionals in Jammu who meet up regularly?

I run a small practice here (CA), and the nature of the work means I mostly talk to clients and my own staff. Great for business, terrible for actually knowing people.

Looking for people around my age who are building something of their own doesn't matter what field. Lawyers, doctors running clinics, agency folks, shop owners, freelancers, anyone. Just people who get what it's like to run your own thing in a city this size.

Does anything like this exist here already? A group, a regular Sunday coffee, a Discord, anything. Everything I've found is either dead or basically a lead-generation group where people just drop their business cards.

If it doesn't exist, tell me and I'll look at putting something together.

I’m curious to hear from people in Jammu who have recently started a small business whether it’s a shop, trading business, online business, service business, manufacturing, etc.

I’m a Chartered Accountant based in Jammu and recently started my own practice. One thing I’ve noticed is that many small/new business owners hesitate to approach a CA when they have questions about GST, invoicing, ITRs, accounts, registrations, etc.

Sometimes it’s because they think:

• “My business is too small to need a CA.”
• “CA fees will be too expensive.”
• “I’ll figure out GST myself.”
• “I’ll approach someone when the business becomes bigger.”

And honestly, I can understand that mindset.

I’m interested in hearing from people who have actually gone through this.

If you’ve recently started a business in Jammu, what was the most confusing part for you  GST, accounts, registration, taxation, invoicing, or something else?

Not trying to sell anything here. Just trying to understand the problems new businesses in Jammu are actually facing, especially because I’ve recently started working independently myself.

I'm a newly practicing CA, and this was one of those experiences they don't teach you.

A business owner approached me midway through the year. While reviewing the GST data, I noticed something strange.

• Actual sales were around ₹25 lakh, mostly B2C.
• But the previously filed returns showed almost no B2C sales.
• Instead, there were B2B invoices that the owner himself couldn't identify or produce.

I explained the risks:

• GST returns should reflect the actual transactions.
• If tax has been collected from customers, the corresponding liability has to be discharged after eligible ITC.
• Continuing with incorrect reporting could invite future scrutiny and create a much bigger problem.

The client disappeared.

A few days later, I found out he had filed through another accountant, and once again the return showed negligible sales with some unexplained B2B figures.

Did I lose a client? Yes.

Do I regret refusing to sign off on something I wasn't comfortable with? No.

Starting a practice is hard. Sometimes doing the right thing costs you revenue in the short term. I'm hoping that in the long run, clients who value compliance and honest advice are the ones who stay.

Fellow CAs have you faced similar situations where sticking to professional ethics meant losing a client?

After watching the ITR-1 & ITR-2 deadline rush, one thing became obvious many people waited until the last few days and then struggled with missing documents, portal issues, and unnecessary stress.

If you're filing ITR-3 or ITR-4, your due date is 31 August. If you haven't started yet, this week is probably a good time to:

• Reconcile your income and expenses.
• Check AIS/TIS and Form 26AS.
• Verify TDS and advance tax details.
• Keep bank statements and supporting documents ready.
• Review whether you're eligible for presumptive taxation (if applicable).

Leaving everything for the last week usually increases the chances of mistakes or missed information.

For those who have already filed ITR-3 or ITR-4 this year:

• What's the biggest issue you faced?
• Any common mistakes others should watch out for?

For weeks...

"I'll send the documents tomorrow."
"I'm travelling."
"Just one more day."

Then the due date passes...

📞 "CA sir, please file my ITR today. It's extremely urgent!"

Every year, without fail. 😄

No complaints we're here to help. But tax compliance rewards those who prepare early, not those who panic late.

To all taxpayers your CA is your advisor, not a time machine. 😅

CAs, what's the funniest excuse or last-minute call you've received after the due date?

I came across a post where someone missed the ITR due date because their CA couldn't file the return in time.

It made me wonder...

Why are people so hesitant to give a newly qualified CA a chance?

A fresher CA may not know every niche issue on Day 1 and that's perfectly okay. The difference is that they'll usually:

• Research the issue thoroughly.
• Discuss it with senior CAs or mentors if needed.
• Verify the position before filing.
• Give your case the time and attention it deserves.

Knowledge can be learned. Deadlines can't be recovered.

An experienced CA brings years of expertise, but during peak season they may also be managing hundreds of returns. A fresher CA, on the other hand, often has the time and motivation to ensure your return is filed correctly and on time.

Every experienced CA was once a fresher. Someone trusted them with their first client.

Would you give a newly qualified CA a chance if they were honest about what they knew, researched what they didn't, and communicated with you throughout the process?

Practising CA. Every season I get some version of this: "Sir, dost ka refund double aaya, uske accountant ne koi allowance dikhaya. Aap kyun nahi karte?"

It's almost always Section 10(14) uniform allowance, sometimes helper or academic. And yes, the friend got his refund. Credited in eleven days. He read that as proof the claim was fine.

Three reasons it isn't.

1. Most of you can't claim it at all.

Rule 2BB(3): if you're under 115BAC, exactly four things survive travel on tour/transfer, daily allowance, conveyance for official duty, and divyang transport allowance (₹3,200/month). Uniform, helper, academic, children's education, hostel: zero. You guys just taking this exemption without verifying from from 16 and just to claim refund

2. Detection is a two-column comparison.

Your employer's 24Q Annexure II already gives the department your full salary break-up. Your ITR Schedule S has a line for exempt allowances u/s 10. ITR says ₹1.5L, employer says ₹0. That's a query letter, not an investigation.

Worth remembering 10(14)(i) needs the allowance to be granted by the employer and the expense actually incurred. It's reimbursement logic. You can't conjure it at the ITR stage.

3. The refund is not a clearance.

It came out of 143(1) automated processing, expressly not an assessment. 143(2) scrutiny can issue up to 3 months from the end of the FY of filing. Reassessment under 149 runs 3 years 3 months from the end of the AY. Your window is roughly four years, not eleven days.

When it lands, a knowingly false claim is misreporting under 270A(9)(a) 200% of the tax, not 50%. And 270AA(3) bars immunity where penalty is initiated under a 270A(9) limb.

Before someone corrects me yes, Schneider Electric (Del HC) and ITAT orders since have restored immunity where the AO wrote "misreporting" without naming the clause. Take it if an officer hands it to you. But that's a defect in his notice, not an exception to the bar and on a fabricated allowance, clause (a) writes itself.

Then 234D interest on the excess refund, and 276C exposure on top.

And you signed the verification. Not the agent who filed through a burner email ID, took his cut of your refund, and is unreachable by the time the notice reaches an inbox nobody checks.

If your consultant found you an extra ₹40,000 without asking for a single document, ask him one question: which line of my Form 16 is this coming from?

If there's no clean answer, that's your answer.

The due date has been extended in 5 of the last 6 years. It's why half of us are still sitting on our returns on 29 July.

Two things came out this week that most people haven't connected:

1. The Government confirmed in Parliament that the e-filing service provider is contractually liable to pay a penalty if a due date has to be extended for reasons attributable to it. So an extension is no longer a free administrative decision someone eats a cost.

2. MoS Finance told the Lok Sabha on 21 July that the portal has been "largely stable" and is tested to process 1 crore returns in a single day. On 14 July, 12.22 lakh returns were filed against 1.61 crore total portal transactions.

the Department has both a financial reason and an official narrative for not extending. "Portal is slow" is not going to be enough this year.

What that means practically if you're still unfiled:

• File tonight if your numbers are ready. Don't touch it on the 30th–31st.
• If a submission fails, screenshot the error with the timestamp visible and save the portal journal/acknowledgement. Vague complaints go nowhere; a timestamped failure log is the only thing that has ever supported a condonation request.
• If you genuinely can't file: belated return stays open till 31 Dec 2026. Late fee is ₹5,000, or ₹1,000 if total income is up to ₹5 lakh, and nil if you're below the basic exemption limit. What you actually lose is the right to carry forward capital and business losses that's the expensive part, not the fee.

I file returns for a living, so I'll hang around in the comments if anyone's stuck on something specific.

Question for the sub: has anyone here actually had a portal failure this week that they can screenshot, or is the extension chatter mostly wishful?

The due date has been extended in 5 of the last 6 years. It's why half of us are still sitting on our returns on 29 July.

Two things came out this week that most people haven't connected:

1. The Government confirmed in Parliament that the e-filing service provider is contractually liable to pay a penalty if a due date has to be extended for reasons attributable to it. So an extension is no longer a free administrative decision someone eats a cost.

2. MoS Finance told the Lok Sabha on 21 July that the portal has been "largely stable" and is tested to process 1 crore returns in a single day. On 14 July, 12.22 lakh returns were filed against 1.61 crore total portal transactions.

the Department has both a financial reason and an official narrative for not extending. "Portal is slow" is not going to be enough this year.

What that means practically if you're still unfiled:

• File tonight if your numbers are ready. Don't touch it on the 30th–31st.
• If a submission fails, screenshot the error with the timestamp visible and save the portal journal/acknowledgement. Vague complaints go nowhere; a timestamped failure log is the only thing that has ever supported a condonation request.
• If you genuinely can't file: belated return stays open till 31 Dec 2026. Late fee is ₹5,000, or ₹1,000 if total income is up to ₹5 lakh, and nil if you're below the basic exemption limit. What you actually lose is the right to carry forward capital and business losses — that's the expensive part, not the fee.

I file returns for a living, so I'll hang around in the comments if anyone's stuck on something specific.

Question for the sub: has anyone here actually had a portal failure this week that they can screenshot, or is the extension chatter mostly wishful?

I'm a practicing Chartered Accountant based in Jammu.

Since many people are filing returns or have tax-related doubts, I thought I'd spend some time answering questions here.

Salary, GST, capital gains, business income, notices, deductions ask away.

If I know the answer, I'll reply in the comments.

I'm a practicing CA.

A new client approached me to prepare their income tax return. I spent time collecting details, reviewing the information, preparing the return, reconciling everything, and shared the computation.

When it was time to file, the client said, "Don't file it yet, I'll let you know."

A few hours later, they changed the portal password, logged in themselves, and filed the exact return I had prepared.

I wasn't paid anything for the work, despite investing my time and expertise.

I understand clients are free to file their own returns, but using a professional's work without paying doesn't feel right.

For those in practice or freelancing:

• Would you still bill the client for the preparation work?
• Do you take an advance before starting?
• How do you avoid situations like this with first-time clients?

Curious to hear how others handle this.

I'm a practicing CA.

A new client approached me to prepare their income tax return. I spent time collecting details, reviewing the information, preparing the return, reconciling everything, and shared the computation.

When it was time to file, the client said, "Don't file it yet, I'll let you know."

A few hours later, they changed the portal password, logged in themselves, and filed the exact return I had prepared.

I wasn't paid anything for the work, despite investing my time and expertise.

I understand clients are free to file their own returns, but using a professional's work without paying doesn't feel right.

For those in practice or freelancing:

• Would you still bill the client for the preparation work?
• Do you take an advance before starting?
• How do you avoid situations like this with first-time clients?

Curious to hear how others handle this.

I'm a practicing CA.

A new client approached me to prepare their income tax return. I spent time collecting details, reviewing the information, preparing the return, reconciling everything, and shared the computation.

When it was time to file, the client said, "Don't file it yet, I'll let you know."

A few hours later, they changed the portal password, logged in themselves, and filed the exact return I had prepared.

I wasn't paid anything for the work, despite investing my time and expertise.

I understand clients are free to file their own returns, but using a professional's work without paying doesn't feel right.

For those in practice or freelancing:

• Would you still bill the client for the preparation work?
• Do you take an advance before starting?
• How do you avoid situations like this with first-time clients?

Curious to hear how others handle this.

I'm a practising CA in Jammu and I'm genuinely curious.

If you were hiring a Chartered Accountant today, what would matter most?

• Fixed pricing?
• Quick replies?
• Someone who explains things in simple language?
• Experience?
• Availability on WhatsApp?
• Something else?

I'm not looking for clients through this post.

I'm asking because I think our profession can do a much better job of understanding what clients actually want.

Would love to hear honest opinions.

I'm a practising CA based in Jammu and I've been wondering about this for a while.

A few things I'd genuinely like to know:

1. Do you file your own return, or do you go through a CA / tax consultant?

2. If you file it yourself what made you decide that? Cost, the portal being simple enough, a bad past experience, something else?

3. If you're in Jammu specifically was finding a CA hard, or did you just never look?

Not pitching anything, no DMs, I'm just trying to understand the gap from the other side. Blunt answers welcome if you think CAs overcharge for simple returns or are a pain to deal with, say it.

Every July I get the same question from people holding US RSUs or an INDmoney/Vested/Schwab account, and the mistake is almost always identical. Putting it here so you can check your own return before you file.

1. It's the calendar year.

Everything else in your ITR is FY 2025-26. Schedule FA is not. For AY 2026-27 you report foreign assets held during 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025. People pull an FY-basis statement from their broker, paste those numbers in, and the figures never reconcile with what the department already holds through CRS/FATCA.

Note the split: your foreign income stays on the normal FY basis (1 April 2025 – 31 March 2026) and goes in Schedule FSI. Only the asset disclosure in FA runs on the calendar year. Treat it as a separate data-pull, not a subset of your income working.

2. It reports holdings, not income. "I didn't sell anything" is not a reason to skip it.

Vested RSUs sitting in your Morgan Stanley / Schwab / Etrade account are reportable — the shares under Table A3, the account itself under A2. Nil income, unrealised loss, shares acquired entirely out of already-taxed salary: none of that removes the obligation. Dormant accounts from an old overseas posting are reportable too.

3. It applies only if you're Resident and Ordinarily Resident.

RNOR and Non-Resident don't fill Schedule FA at all. If you moved during the year, actually run your day count instead of assuming — a lot of people fill it when they didn't need to, and a lot skip it when they did.

4. ITR-1 and ITR-4 are off the table.

Those forms don't contain Schedule FA. Any foreign asset pushes you to ITR-2 or ITR-3, no matter how simple the rest of your return is. Filing ITR-1 while holding foreign assets is a clean route to a defective return.

5. Schedule FA ≠ Schedule FSI ≠ Schedule TR.

Three different jobs, and people routinely do one and assume they're done.

• FA — asset disclosure (calendar year)
• FSI — foreign income offered to tax (financial year)
• TR — the foreign tax credit claim, which depends on Form 67

Form 67 must be filed on or before the end of the relevant assessment year — 31 March 2027 for AY 2026-27 — but file it before you file the return, not after. Don't leave it to the deadline.

6. The ₹20 lakh threshold — read this one carefully.

The Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, with effect from 1 October 2024, replaced the old ₹5 lakh bank-account exclusion in the provisos to Sections 42 and 43 of the Black Money Act with a wider one: foreign assets other than immovable property, where the aggregate value does not exceed ₹20 lakh at any time during the relevant previous year. CBDT has since directed that prosecution under Sec 49/50 won't be initiated where penalty under Sec 42/43 isn't imposable in such cases.

This is relief from penalty and prosecution. It is not an exemption from disclosure. The Schedule FA obligation applies from the first rupee. Below ₹20 lakh you're shielded from the ₹10 lakh hit; you are not excused from reporting.

Two further points people miss: it doesn't cover foreign immovable property at all, and penalty proceedings validly initiated before the amendment aren't rescued by the higher threshold.

Why the stakes are odd here: the penalty under Sec 43 is a flat ₹10 lakh per assessment year. Not a percentage — flat, regardless of the asset's value and regardless of whether any tax was actually due. A ₹30 lakh RSU holding you forgot to disclose and on which you owed nothing still carries the same ₹10 lakh exposure as something far larger. That's why this schedule deserves more attention than its size suggests.

7. Conversion.

SBI TT buying rate. Get the reference date right for peak value versus closing value — the instructions specify them separately, and this is a common slip.

If you filed a previous year on ITR-1 with foreign assets sitting in the background, or skipped FA entirely, that's usually fixable — but the route depends on which year and how far along it is. Worth sorting before it finds you.

Practising CA. Happy to take questions in the comments.

Every July I get the same question from people holding US RSUs or an INDmoney/Vested/Schwab account, and the mistake is almost always identical. Putting it here so you can check your own return before you file.

1. It's the calendar year.

Everything else in your ITR is FY 2025-26. Schedule FA is not. For AY 2026-27 you report foreign assets held during 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025. People pull an FY-basis statement from their broker, paste those numbers in, and the figures never reconcile with what the department already holds through CRS/FATCA.

Note the split: your foreign income stays on the normal FY basis (1 April 2025 – 31 March 2026) and goes in Schedule FSI. Only the asset disclosure in FA runs on the calendar year. Treat it as a separate data-pull, not a subset of your income working.

2. It reports holdings, not income. "I didn't sell anything" is not a reason to skip it.

Vested RSUs sitting in your Morgan Stanley / Schwab / Etrade account are reportable — the shares under Table A3, the account itself under A2. Nil income, unrealised loss, shares acquired entirely out of already-taxed salary: none of that removes the obligation. Dormant accounts from an old overseas posting are reportable too.

3. It applies only if you're Resident and Ordinarily Resident.

RNOR and Non-Resident don't fill Schedule FA at all. If you moved during the year, actually run your day count instead of assuming — a lot of people fill it when they didn't need to, and a lot skip it when they did.

4. ITR-1 and ITR-4 are off the table.

Those forms don't contain Schedule FA. Any foreign asset pushes you to ITR-2 or ITR-3, no matter how simple the rest of your return is. Filing ITR-1 while holding foreign assets is a clean route to a defective return.

5. Schedule FA ≠ Schedule FSI ≠ Schedule TR.

Three different jobs, and people routinely do one and assume they're done.

• FA — asset disclosure (calendar year)
• FSI — foreign income offered to tax (financial year)
• TR — the foreign tax credit claim, which depends on Form 67

Form 67 must be filed on or before the end of the relevant assessment year — 31 March 2027 for AY 2026-27 — but file it before you file the return, not after. Don't leave it to the deadline.

6. The ₹20 lakh threshold — read this one carefully.

The Finance (No. 2) Act 2024, with effect from 1 October 2024, replaced the old ₹5 lakh bank-account exclusion in the provisos to Sections 42 and 43 of the Black Money Act with a wider one: foreign assets other than immovable property, where the aggregate value does not exceed ₹20 lakh at any time during the relevant previous year. CBDT has since directed that prosecution under Sec 49/50 won't be initiated where penalty under Sec 42/43 isn't imposable in such cases.

This is relief from penalty and prosecution. It is not an exemption from disclosure. The Schedule FA obligation applies from the first rupee. Below ₹20 lakh you're shielded from the ₹10 lakh hit; you are not excused from reporting.

Two further points people miss: it doesn't cover foreign immovable property at all, and penalty proceedings validly initiated before the amendment aren't rescued by the higher threshold.

Why the stakes are odd here: the penalty under Sec 43 is a flat ₹10 lakh per assessment year. Not a percentage — flat, regardless of the asset's value and regardless of whether any tax was actually due. A ₹30 lakh RSU holding you forgot to disclose and on which you owed nothing still carries the same ₹10 lakh exposure as something far larger. That's why this schedule deserves more attention than its size suggests.

7. Conversion.

SBI TT buying rate. Get the reference date right for peak value versus closing value — the instructions specify them separately, and this is a common slip.

If you filed a previous year on ITR-1 with foreign assets sitting in the background, or skipped FA entirely, that's usually fixable — but the route depends on which year and how far along it is. Worth sorting before it finds you.

Practising CA. Happy to take questions in the comments.

If you own foreign shares, ETFs, overseas bank accounts, or other foreign assets, check your AIS before filing your ITR.
I made a short explainer covering:
• What appears in AIS
• Why it matters
• What you should verify before filing
Happy to answer questions in the comments.