Can I change Form 16 salary amount while filing ITR?

Yes. If your actual income to be taxed under the head "Salary" is higher than the amount mentioned in Form 16, then you should provide the actual salary details to the Income Tax Department while filing Income Tax Return (ITR). For this, you can edit the Form 16 amount reflected in the e-filing portal while filing your return.

When filing ITR, the e-filing portal requires you to provide correct details of your gross total income from all sources, including salary/pension, house property, capital gains, interest income, family pension, and any other income. These details are pre-filled under various schedules of your chosen ITR form on the e-filing portal. However, you are required to verify that all the amounts mentioned in your ITR are correct; if not, then you should edit the pre-filled data.

"The salary figure is editable and the actual figures that are taxable should be incorporated irrespective of whether the figure matches with Form 16. One may consider also revising the Form 16 to align with actual figures reported in the return of income)," says ICAI.

There could be various reasons why the pre-filled data on the e-filing portal may not correctly show all your salary income.

For instance, you may have switched jobs during the previous financial year, but the e-filing portal fetched data from the Form 16 issued by only one of your employers.

Similarly, it is also possible that the e-filing portal may be reflecting just the amount shown in your Form 16, but you may have some other incomes that are considered under the head "Salary." These include incomes from wages, annuity or pension, gratuity fees, commissions, bonus, taxable perquisites, any advance of salary, leave encashment, employer contribution to provident fund to the extent chargeable to tax.

What should you do?

The amount of salary is auto-populated from Form 16. You should verify the amount by adding the different components included under salary as per Section 17(1).