As you might have guessed, Advance Tax is a “pay-as-you-earn” scheme for the periodical payment of your yearly tax in advance. Advance Tax needs to be paid if your Tax Liability is INR 10,000 or more. Advance Tax can be paid in 4 equal installments at equal time gap.
Lets learn more about the Advance Tax…
Why Advance Tax?
Believe it or not, Advance Tax is gaining more popularity than you think. Since last Financial Year, Advance Tax collection from Individuals rose from INR 24,000 Crore. to INR 33,000 Crore. That is nearly 37.5 % increase from the previous Financial Year.
However, the Corporate Advance Tax took a free fall of 5.2% in December 2019. Since FinMin, slashed the corporate Tax rate to 22%, economists predicted a strong possibility of increased Advance Tax collection. But, as the Murphy’s Law states, “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong“, and it did go all wrong for the Indian Stock Markets and the Economy. Advance Tax payment by companies was reduced by INR 4,000 Crore.
Advance Tax has multi-faced benefits. Not only the Government gets its Tax Revenues throughout the year, but also it helps mitigate the Tax Burden on taxpayers at end of every Financial Year.
Fun Fact: Investors in the Stock Markets often use the publicly available information of the Advance Tax payments for companies to gauge upcoming quarterly results. Studying the company’s normal Tax rate, they work back to guess possible profits by comparing it with profits in past years.
Who needs to pay Advance Tax?
Advance Tax is required to be paid by Individuals/corporate taxpayers if their Tax Liability is INR 10,000 or more. Keep in mind, Salaried individuals don’t have to pay advance tax as employers deduct their TDS. Advance Tax is therefore only applicable to non-salary sources of income (including income from Rent, Capital Gains, Business or Profession). However, Salaried Individuals are liable to pay advance tax if TDS is not deducted or incorrectly deducted.
Some of these non-salary income sources are:
- Income received on Capital Gains i.e, sale of shares, property, car etc.
- Interest received on Fixed Deposits, Recurring Deposits,
- Rent received on house property,
- Earnings through a lottery
Also, worth noting that self-employed individuals, businessmen, corporates and companies too need to pay Advance Tax.
When to pay Advance Tax?
Advance Tax (for Individuals and Corporate Taxpayers) can be paid on a quarterly basis as per the dates below:
| Due Date of Installment | Amount Payable |
| On or Before 15th June | 15% of the Advance Tax |
| On or Before 15th September | 45% of the Advance Tax |
| On or Before 15th December | 75% of the Advance Tax |
| On of Before 15th March | 100% of the Advance Tax |
Advance Tax for Individuals who have opted for Presumptive Taxation under section 44AD and 44ADA -Business and Professional Income
| Due Date | Advance Tax Payable |
| On or Before 15th March | 100% of the Advance Tax |
Advance Tax for Traders
In case of Traders, it is generally difficult to project their income. They have two approaches on hand:
Approach 1
Traders can pay Advance Tax at the end of each quarter by estimating their trading income. Depending on the actual Tax Liability, traders could obtain a refund (if their Advance Tax payment is more than actual Tax Liability). However, in case the Trader estimated his Tax Liability less than the actual Tax Liability, a penalty of 1% on the differential amount has to be paid u/s 234C.
Approach 2
Since Traders can’t estimate their trading income, they can pay advance tax on the due date of last quarter i.e, 15th March. In this case, if advance tax paid is less than the actual tax liability, penal interest u/s 234C will be levied for all 4 quarters.
For Traders who are planning to pay Advance Tax, it is suggested that they check for any Unrealised Losses. These Unrealised losses can be sold and be made Realised Losses which can further be set off against Realised Profit to reduce their Tax Liability. This Concept is called Tax Loss harvesting
All in all, Advance Tax is one of those few methods of paying Taxes which have multiple benefits. We feel that, as and when the taxpayers start to realize this, the number of people paying Advance Tax will increase steadily. It is also possible that Advance Tax becomes the main medium for the Income Tax Department for collecting Taxes.
It is a wild guess, but…any thing that can happen, will happen!!