TDS Services — Which Part of the Deduction Cycle Do You Need?
TDS is not one task but a repeating cycle: work out what to deduct, pay it by the 7th, file the quarterly return, issue the certificate, then reconcile what TRACES says against what you actually did. Most deductors are stuck at one specific point in that loop. This page takes you there.
- Applicability, sections, rates and monthly workings
- Challan 281 preparation and 7th-of-the-month tracking
- 24Q, 26Q and 27Q filing with challan mapping
- Form 16, 16A, 16B and 16C from TRACES
- 26AS mismatches, justification reports and default correction
The Cycle Breaks at the Joins, Not in the Middle
Deducting tax correctly is rarely the hard part. What goes wrong is the handover between steps: a deduction that was calculated but paid under the wrong section, a challan that exists but is mapped to the wrong quarter, a return filed before the challan cleared, a certificate issued from a return that was itself wrong.
TRACES then reports the consequence rather than the cause. A default notice tells you there is a short deduction or a short payment; it does not tell you which of the four joins produced it. That is why reconciliation reads the justification report first and works backwards, instead of refiling and hoping.
The services below follow the cycle in order. If you are not sure where you are in it, the quickest test is whether your challans, your return and your books agree with each other. If they do and TRACES still disagrees, start at reconciliation.
Find the Service You Need
Six TDS services plus TAN, in the order the cycle runs.
Before You Deduct
Pay and File
When It Does Not Match
Why These Belong Together
Every TDS default is a disagreement between two steps in the cycle, which is why splitting the steps across providers costs the most.
Challans and returns have to agree
A return maps deductions to challans that must already exist on the portal, in the right quarter and the right section. Whoever files should be the one who paid.
The 7th does not move
Monthly payment deadlines, quarterly returns and certificate windows run on their own calendar. Tracked together, one missed date does not cascade into the next three.
Certificates are only as good as the return
Form 16 and 16A are generated from what was filed. Issuing a certificate from a wrong return pushes your error onto your employees and vendors.
CA-led throughout
Workings, filings and default replies are prepared by qualified professionals who can read a justification report rather than resubmit blindly.
TDS Questions Deductors Ask First
Self-contained answers on forms, due dates, mismatches and TAN.
- They are the three quarterly TDS return forms, split by who was paid. 24Q covers salary deductions, 26Q covers payments other than salary to residents, and 27Q covers payments to non-residents. Most deductors file more than one of them in the same quarter, which is why challan mapping across forms is where errors usually appear.
- For most deductions the due date is the 7th of the following month, with March treated differently. Missing it attracts interest, and an unpaid or mismatched challan then blocks the quarterly return, because the return has to map deductions to challans that actually exist on the portal.
- Almost always because the return, the challan and the books disagree somewhere: a PAN entered wrongly, a challan mapped to the wrong quarter or section, or a deduction booked but never filed. TRACES publishes a justification report that shows where the default sits, and reconciliation works backwards from that rather than guessing.
- TDS Reconciliation. A default notice is a symptom, and the justification report names the cause — short deduction, short payment, late payment or a PAN error. The correction statement follows from that diagnosis, so reconciliation comes before any refiling.
- Yes. A deductor needs a TAN to pay TDS or file a TDS return at all, and it is quoted on every challan and certificate. If you do not have one yet, start there.
Not sure where the cycle broke? Send us the notice.
Share the TRACES default or the quarter that will not reconcile, and we will tell you which step produced it.