What is Form 16?

Form 16 is the certificate an employer issues each year showing the salary paid to an employee and the tax deducted from it, and it is the primary document used to file a salaried person's return.

It comes in two parts. Part A, downloaded from the TRACES portal, shows the tax deducted and deposited quarter by quarter along with the employer's TAN. Part B is the detailed computation — gross salary, exemptions claimed, deductions allowed and tax payable.

Employers must issue it by 15 June following the financial year. An employee who changed jobs mid-year receives one from each employer and must combine them, which is where under-reporting most often creeps in.

Why it matters

The figures in Form 16 must reconcile with Form 26AS and the AIS. If they do not, the return will attract a mismatch notice.

The statutory position

Each figure with the provision it comes from, so it can be checked.
What	Position	Source
Issue deadline	15 June following the financial year	Rule 31, Income-tax Rules 1962
Part A	TAN, PAN, quarterly TDS summary — generated only from TRACES	Rule 31(1)(a) read with CBDT Circular 04/2013
Part B	Salary breakup, deductions claimed and tax computed	Rule 31(1)(a), Annexure II
Penalty for late issue	₹100 per day of delay	Section 272A(2)(g), Income-tax Act 1961

Not to be confused with

These get used interchangeably, including by tools that should know better. They are different things.

Form 16A

Form 16A covers TDS on everything that is not salary — professional fees, rent, interest, commission. Same idea, different section, and issued quarterly rather than annually.

Form 26AS

Form 16 comes from your employer. 26AS comes from the department and shows every deductor. If the two disagree, 26AS is what the assessing officer sees.

Salary slip

A payslip is a monthly internal document with no statutory status. Form 16 is a certificate issued under Rule 31 and is the document a lender or an assessing officer will ask for.

Questions people ask

What if I changed jobs during the year?

You get a Form 16 from each employer, and the return has to combine them. This is where double-counting the standard deduction and the basic exemption happens — each employer computed tax as though they were your only one, so the combined return usually shows tax still payable.

My employer will not give me one. What then?

Late issue carries a ₹100-a-day penalty under section 272A(2)(g). In the meantime, 26AS and the AIS show what was actually deducted and deposited, and a return can be filed from them.

Can Form 16 be typed up by hand?

Part A cannot. It has to be downloaded from TRACES after the quarterly TDS return is processed, and it carries a verification number. A manually prepared Part A is not valid.

What usually goes wrong

Filing from the last employer's Form 16 only, after a mid-year job change
Claiming the standard deduction twice because both employers allowed it
Not checking Part A against 26AS, where a short-deposited quarter shows up
Treating the Form 16 tax figure as final when income outside salary makes more tax payable