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According to the income-tax department, there is an increase of 25% in the number of income-tax returns (ITR) filed till 5 August 2017, compared to same period last year. That is an increase of over 5.5 million returns. If you happen to be among the new ITR filers, remember that after you file the return, you also need to verify it. You can do it offline as well as online. Here are the ways through which you can verify your tax return.

Offline verification

This can be done by downloading the ITR-V (acknowledgement form), signing it physically and mailing it to the Income Tax Centralized Processing Centre (CPC) within 120 days from date of uploading the ITR. You can download ITR-V by logging in into your e-fling account. Here, under the My Account section, click ‘View E-filed returns/Forms’ and submit. You will get list of all the returns filed by you. In the status section you can see which years’ returns are pending verification. Click the acknowledgement number of the respective year’s return and download the ITR-V.

Remember that you should send the signed copy of ITR-V by ordinary mail or speed post only. Once it is received by the CPC, a confirmation will be emailed to you. You can also check the status online on the department’s website.

Online verification

There are various online options to e-verify your return. These options help you to verify the return instantly. These include e-verification through net-banking, bank account number, demat account number and Aadhaar number.

For e-verifying the return through net-banking, you need to log into your e-filing account through your net-banking login and password. It means you will first need to login to your net banking account and click on the option Income Tax e-filing to login to your income tax account.

After that go to “My Account” menu and click on “e-verify return”. List of all the returns uploaded, which can be e-verified will be displayed. On the right hand side, click on “e-verify” to verify the return of the respective assessment year.

In order to e-verify return other than through net-banking, you will need to generate electronics verification code (EVC), which you will receive on your phone number registered with your bank or demat account. However, first you will need to pre-validate your bank or demat account number,with e-filing account. To pre-validate the accounts, go to “profile setting” and choose which bank or demat account you want to pre-validate.

You will need to provide information like bank name, bank account number, IFSC code, mobile and email ID to validate your bank account. Similarly, to pre-validate demat account, you will have to provide depository type, DP ID, Client ID, mobile number and email ID. Once you do so, you can generate EVC to verify the return.

The other option is to e-verify the return through generating One Time Password (OTP) through Aadhaar. In this case, an OTP will be sent on your mobile number registered with Aadhaar to verify return.

Ideally you should try to e-verify the return, as it gives you an immediate conformation of ITR verification. More over it will expedite the processing of return and tax refunds, if any.