If you haven't e-filed your income tax return yet, you have reason to rejoice, the due date for filing of your tax return has been extended to 7 September. If you have earned income which is more than Rs 2,50,000 (gross) you still have a few days to file and meet the due date.

Filing before the due date has benefits. If you have tax payable, you will be saved from penal interest under section 234A. Those who've had a bad stint at the stock markets and have earned short term capital losses, must file a return. Without a return such losses, which remain unadjusted from income, are not allowed to be carried forward. It may not be so bad to have incurred a loss after all; a loss which can be carried forward and adjusted in future years can be useful. Sometimes, we may need to revise a return when we've omitted some income or deduction or have additional deduction to report; returns which will be filed by 7t September shall be allowed to be revised if required.

Your e-filing is smooth and won't take much time, when you have a Form 16, most e-filers including ClearTax allow upload of Form 16. A PDF of your form 16 can be uploaded and saves you from manually entering information. You can also enter details manually while it's possible to upload multiple Form 16s as well. Find what works best and start preparing your return. Do note though that more than one Form 16 is very likely to throw up a tax due. This is mainly because TDS has been deducted on your salary by employers, who don't have information about your aggregate salary, or who may not have taxed your income at the correct slab. This may make your TDS deductions insufficient and result in a tax payable.

Remember to mention your name and date of birth in your return exactly as it appears in the PAN details; first, middle and last. Tax returns are not accepted if there's a name mismatch. A lot of taxpayers who have not been able to claim HRA from the employer, can do so while filing their tax returns. Just calculate the exempt portion of HRA and reduce it from your total taxable salary. You may need a CA to help you out at the last minute. No documents have to be submitted to your e-filer or to the tax department, but you must maintain these safely with you, should the Assessing Officer ask for them. Medi-claim and LTA cannot be at the time of filing of your tax return.

Do not miss reporting your interest income from savings bank accounts and fixed deposits. You'll have to download annual statements of your bank account or look them up from your email. Take interest for 12 months of April 2014 to March 2015. Usually the interest credits are quarterly and you have to pick for the 4 relevant quarters. Fixed deposits interest can also be found in your statements. Even though your FD may have a longer maturity, you must report the interest income in your return annually. That way your income matches up with the TDS deduction on such income made by the bank. And you can include this TDS in your return which will be adjusted against total tax payable. If you wait for the FD to mature and then include interest, you may have a tough time matching the TDS deducted in earlier years against your tax dues.

After including all incomes, mention all the deductions you are eligible for. All the deductions under section 80 can be claimed at the time of filing your return. This can be done where these deductions or investments were not disclosed to your employer, do however maintain proper receipts.

TDS which has already been deducted is adjusted against your final tax dues. This may result in a refund or a tax due. Pay your tax dues before filing your return.

After you have successfully e-filed, you have to verify your return. This year the tax department has introduced several new ways to verify your return. If your incomes less deductions are Rs 5 lakhs or less you can e-verify on the department's website via EVC. If your income is more than Rs 5lakhs, you can use the aadhaar OTP method, which starts with first linking your aadhaar on the department's website. If you have a refund due you must use netbanking to e-verify. If you do not succeed with any of these means of e-verification, you can send your ITR-V the old way, via speed post, to CPC Bangalore.

With 2 deadline extensions, you can make it with your returns in time, do not miss it.