One calendar now: TDS and TCS statements under the Income-tax Rules, 2026

Most businesses that deduct tax also collect it at some point — on a sale of scrap, on a motor vehicle above the prescribed value, on an overseas tour programme, on a remittance abroad. Deduction and collection remain separate reporting streams with separate returns. What they no longer have is separate due dates.

Until 31 March 2026 the deduction statements ran to the end of the month following the quarter and the collection statement, then Form 27EQ, ran on the fifteenth. Rule 219 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 ended that split. From the quarter ended 30 June 2026 the statements are furnished on one calendar, and the form numbers have changed with them.

The one schedule, and the forms that run on it

Form 138 for salary, Form 140 for resident payments other than salary, Form 144 for payments to non-residents, and Form 143 for collection are all due on the same date — with the same single exception at the end of the year.

• Quarter ended 30 June — 31 July
• Quarter ended 30 September — 31 October
• Quarter ended 31 December — 31 January
• Quarter ended 31 March — 31 May, not 30 April

The forms, old and new

The renumbering is worth learning as pairs, because the old numbers are still live on every statement filed for a period up to 31 March 2026.

• Salary deduction — Form 138, was Form 24Q
• Resident payments other than salary — Form 140, was Form 26Q
• Payments to non-residents — Form 144, was Form 27Q
• Collection at source — Form 143, was Form 27EQ
• Salary deduction certificate — Form 130, was Form 16. The first Form 130 is issued on 15 June 2027; the certificate an employee holds today for the year ended 31 March 2026 is a Form 16.

Deposit of the tax is a third thing, and it is monthly for both streams: by the seventh of the month following deduction or collection. March is treated differently, and that date should be read off the Rules for the year rather than remembered.

Why a late statement costs more than it looks

A late statement is not a paperwork problem, and three consequences follow from it.

• A fee runs for every day of delay in furnishing the statement, subject to a ceiling equal to the tax reported in it. It is a fee rather than a penalty, which matters: it is not remitted on a showing of reasonable cause, and it has to be paid before the statement will go through.
• A separate penalty is exigible for failing to furnish the statement at all, and for furnishing incorrect particulars in it. That one is discretionary, and it tends to follow a pattern of default rather than a single lapse.
• Nobody gets credit until you file. Tax you have deducted does not reach the deductee's annual information statement until your statement is processed, and the deduction certificate cannot be issued before that either. Your delay lands on somebody else's return.

The third consequence is the one that generates telephone calls. A vendor who cannot see his credit will chase it, and until the statement is filed there is nothing to show him.

Where the mix-up actually happens

The trap has moved. It is no longer the split between two calendars — it is the transition between two sets of Rules, and the fact that both are live at once.

• A correction statement for a period up to 31 March 2026 is prepared on the new form numbers. It belongs on the old ones: a period governed by the 1962 Rules stays in Forms 24Q, 26Q, 27Q and 27EQ however late it is filed.
• The old fifteenth-of-the-month date is applied to a collection statement for a current quarter, and the statement goes in a fortnight early. Early costs nothing, but the same habit applied to the fourth quarter files on 15 May a statement that reports a quarter which has only just closed.
• Worse, the reverse: a business that learned the new single calendar applies 31 May to a fourth-quarter collection statement for the year ended 31 March 2026. That one was due 15 May and the fee has run.
• The fourth-quarter deduction statement is assumed to be due on 30 April, by analogy with the deposit date for March. It is 31 May, and that has not changed.
• The collection obligation is discovered late. Scrap sales sit in a miscellaneous income ledger nobody reads until the audit, and by then several quarters of Form 143 are unfiled and the fee has run on each.
• There was nothing to report, so nothing was done. Where there is no reportable transaction in a quarter, the reason for non-filing should be recorded on the reporting portal, so the absence is explained rather than sitting on the record as an apparent default.

Controls that prevent it

• One calendar carrying both tracks, with a named owner against each line. That is now what the Rules themselves provide, so a calendar that still shows two sets of dates for current quarters is out of date rather than cautious.
• A column on that calendar for which set of Rules governs the period being filed. It is the only control that catches a correction for an old quarter being prepared on a new form.
• A monthly reconciliation of challans to the deduction and collection registers, done before the quarter closes, so that preparing the statement is a compilation rather than an investigation.
• Verification of the permanent account number when a party is onboarded, not when the statement is being filed. A missing or invalid number changes the rate and surfaces as a short-deduction default after processing.
• Reading the processing intimation after every filing. Short deduction, interest on late deposit and invalid-number defaults appear in the summary generated after processing, and a correction filed promptly costs far less than one filed after a notice.
• A standing question to the accounts team each quarter — was there a scrap sale, a vehicle sale, a remittance — rather than an assumption from last quarter.

Corrections, and what a correction cannot do

A statement once furnished can be revised, and a correction statement is the ordinary route for a wrong permanent account number, a wrong provision quoted, a challan mapped to the wrong deductee, or a figure that has changed. Corrections are routine.

What a correction cannot do is undo a delay. The fee for late furnishing attaches to the original due date, so holding a statement back in order to perfect it is almost always worse than filing it on time and correcting it afterwards.

One last distinction: the rates and thresholds at which deduction or collection is triggered change by notification and by the annual Finance Act, while the reporting dates above are stable. The dates are worth memorising. The rates are worth looking up every year.