TCS Services — Which Part of the Collection Cycle Do You Need?
TCS runs the same shape of loop as TDS, but from the other side of the invoice: establish which categories still apply, collect and pay, file Form 27EQ, issue Form 27D, and reconcile what the buyer can actually claim. This page takes you to the step you are stuck on.
- Which categories are still live after the 206C(1H) abolition
- Challan preparation and 7th due-date tracking
- Form 27EQ filing with challan mapping
- Form 27D download, issue and corrections
- Buyer credit checks against 26AS and AIS
Start With Whether You Should Be Collecting at All
TCS differs from TDS in one way that matters more than the mechanics: the question of whether it applies to you has changed recently. The abolition of TCS on the sale of goods under section 206C(1H) removed a category many businesses had built into their invoicing, and systems kept collecting after the rule went. Other categories carry on unchanged.
That makes applicability the first step rather than a formality. A collector still applying an abolished category is not merely over-collecting — they are filing returns that report it, issuing certificates that claim it, and creating buyer-side credits that will not reconcile.
After that, the cycle behaves much like TDS: pay by the due date, map the collection to a challan, file Form 27EQ, issue Form 27D, and confirm the buyer can actually see the credit in 26AS or AIS. The services below run in that order.
Find the Service You Need
Five TCS services, in the order the cycle runs.
Collect and File
Why These Belong Together
A TCS error does not stop at your books — it lands in your buyer's tax credit, which is where it gets expensive.
Applicability decides everything downstream
Collect a category that no longer applies and every step after it is wrong: the challan, the 27EQ, the 27D and the buyer's credit. Checking first is cheaper than unwinding four things later.
Your error becomes your buyer's problem
Buyers claim TCS credit from Form 27D and their 26AS. A wrong PAN or an unmapped challan in your return shows up as their missing credit, and they will ask.
Same calendar as TDS, separate paperwork
Businesses that both deduct and collect run two cycles on similar dates with different forms. Handled together, the two stop being mistaken for each other.
CA-led throughout
Category calls, filings and cleanup are made by qualified professionals rather than left to invoicing settings nobody has revisited.
TCS Questions Collectors Ask First
Self-contained answers on applicability, Form 27EQ, buyer credit and the 206C(1H) change.
- TDS is deducted by the person making a payment; TCS is collected by the person receiving one, on top of the sale value. A business can easily be both at once — deducting on its vendor payments and collecting on its own sales — and the two run on separate forms, separate certificates and separate reconciliations even though the due dates look alike.
- Not all of them, which is the single most common source of error right now. Following the abolition of TCS under section 206C(1H) on the sale of goods, collectors who carried on applying it have over-collected and have to unwind it. Other categories, including the LRS threshold and motor vehicle sales, continue. The calculation page starts from which categories genuinely still apply to you.
- Form 27EQ is the quarterly TCS return, the collector's equivalent of the TDS quarterly forms. It maps each collection to a challan, so a challan that is missing, late or mapped to the wrong quarter blocks the return in the same way a TDS challan does.
- The credit reaches a buyer through Form 27D and their 26AS or AIS, both of which are generated from the filed 27EQ. If the return carried a wrong PAN, the wrong quarter or an unmapped challan, the collection exists in your books but not in their credit. Reconciliation traces it back through the return rather than reissuing the certificate.
- That is exactly what the cleanup work covers: identifying the over-collected period, correcting the returns that reported it, and sorting out the buyer-side credit that followed. It is a correction exercise across collections, challans, 27EQ and 27D rather than a single filing.
Still collecting a category that was abolished?
Tell us what your invoices are charging and we will tell you whether it still applies — and what unwinding it looks like if it does not.