Smoothen Your TDS Compliances By Using Digital Signature – Part 1

Poornima Ganesh

INTRODUCTION

For many applications on the TRACES website, deductor is required to provide KYC Validation. KYC Validation refers to three main details to be provided by the user to gain access to facilities such as downloading a justification report, filing an online correction in TRACES, download of Form 16A and so on. The three parts of details asked for KYC validation are the token receipt number of the regular statement of the relevant quarter and financial year, challan details of that statement and three unique PAN-Amount Combinations corresponding to the entered challan details. Even if any one of the details in any of the parts are not provided or are entered wrong, we will not be able to proceed with our course of action.

However, many a times organisations do face practical difficulties in not being able to provide the above details as it may not be readily available and it is very cumbersome to give details individually for all quarters and financial years.

In this article, I am going to discuss about the facility provided by TRACES where with the help of Digital signature the user can submit the KYC only once and gain access to all downloads, update profile and submit online correction.

PRE-REQUISITE

The pre-requisite for the use of this facility is that the digital signature of the user should be registered on TRACES and the DSC should be installed in the browser or the e-Mudhra Dongle/hard token should be plugged in.

STEP BY STEP PROCESS

1. Once the user logs in to TRACES Website, he can choose any option which requires KYC details to be provided. For Example, he could choose to download the justification report for a default.
2. The user is advised to choose that option and that quarter, Form type and financial year for which details are accurately available with him. The main purpose is that by submitting the KYC once, he can access all downloads, update profile, submit online correction without separate KYC for each of the functionalities.
3. Further, KYC details of any quarter, any financial year, any form type for which an online statement has been filed can be provided.
4. As in the example mentioned, if a user goes to download justification report, a page is displayed with two options- a) Digital Signature supported KYC Validation b) Normal KYC Validation. The user needs to select option (a). Thereafter, provide details of FY, Form Type and Quarter and click on Validate DSC. A window appears where user should Enter the DSC password, click OK, select certificate and click on sign to proceed further.
5. Next, a screen is displayed where the user has to provide the one time KYC for the entered form type, financial year and quarter. Fill in the token receipt number, challan details, PAN combinations and click on proceed.
6. A message comes stating that ” KYC details have been validated. You can place download request for ANY financial year, quarter, Form type, submit requests for online correction and update the profile details in the SAME SESSION. Yes, one important thing to be noted by the user is that he should not be logged out from TRACES and within the same session, access all the functionalities that he needs for his work.
7. Now for example, the user wants to place an online correction request for one of the statements, he can do so by going to Defaults- Request for Correction. Select the FY, Quarter and Form Type and proceed and in the next screen the user is prompted to just validate DSC. No need to enter KYC.
8. Once DSC is validated, the online correction is automatically enabled and user can proceed with the same.

CONCLUSION

Many a times, I have come across situations in my practical work where providing of KYC details is either too time consuming or the data to provide the same is not available due to many unavoidable reasons. The facility of Digital Signature has helped me overcome such practical difficulties. In the next part of my article, I shall discuss about the procedure on how organisations can themselves upload the TDS statements without the need to visit the TIN Facilitation Centre, again pre-requisite being DSC.