Tax deducted and collected at source Became Form 131

Form 16A

Certificate under section 203 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 for tax deducted at source

What this form is

Form 16A belongs to the regime of the Income-tax Act, 1961. The same ground is now covered by Form 131 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. It is a certificate: a document that proves something happened, held by the person who needs to prove it. The person who pays fills this in, not the person who is paid — so if you are the one waiting for it, you are waiting on somebody else’s compliance.

Which provision requires it

Left, the provision as the department’s description names it. Right, where the same ground is covered now — taken from the department’s own section and rule concordances, not worked out by us.

What the description names	Where it sits now
section 203 of the 1961 Act	section 395
named in the 2026 description	section 392 — Salary and accumulated balance due to an employee
named in the 2026 description	section 393 — Tax to be deducted at source

Rules of the 2026 Rules that work the same section. rule 214 (Application by payer for grant of certificate under section 395(2) or), rule 215 (Certificate of tax deducted or collected at source to be furnished), rule 205 (Furnishing of evidence of claims by employee under section 392(5)(b)), rule 218 (Time and mode of payment to Government account of tax deducted or), rule 208 (Furnishing of declaration and evidence of claims by specified senior). This is our own matching — we have paired the section the form names with the rules whose headings name that same section. The department has not said that any of these rules prescribes this form.

What it became under the 2026 Rules

The description changed with the number, and the change is worth reading: the 2026 wording points at the Income-tax Act, 2025, and a great deal of what used to sit in a section of the 1961 Act now sits in a Schedule.

Under the 2026 Rules	What the department calls it
Form 131	Certificate under section 395(4) for tax deducted at source other than on salary paid to an employee under section 392 or pension or interest income of specified senior citizen under section 393(1)

Where you meet it

You meet it on the deduction side of a payment — at the quarter end when a statement falls due, or when the person deducted from asks for the certificate that lets him claim the credit. A mismatch between the statement and the credit claimed is where most of the trouble starts.

On the same provision

Decisions in this library that turn on the same provision of the 1961 Act that this form names. They are about the provision, not about the form; a case is listed here because it argues the section, and none of them is authority on how the form itself is to be filled in.

Near it

Other forms we have put in the same group — tax deducted and collected at source.

Form 10E, Form 12B, Form 12BA, Form 12BAA, Form 12BB, Form 12BBA, Form 13, Form 15C, Form 15D, Form 15E, Form 15G, Form 15H

Work it out

Free calculators on VittSphere ONE for the very provision this page is about. They open in the same window.

Salary and CTC calculator — what a cost-to-company figure becomes in the hand after the standard deduction and the two regimes.
TDS calculator — the rate, the threshold and the deduction on a given payment.
Crypto tax calculator — the flat charge under section 115BBH, with no set-off of losses and no expenditure.

Get the form

Published by the Income Tax Department. The link goes to their file, not a copy of it — a form is revised without notice and a stale copy is worse than none. Both are here because a notice, an order or a judgment may name either number.

Form 16A — 1962 Rules (PDF) Fillable version Form 131 — 2026 Rules (PDF) All forms at the department

What here is the department’s and what is ours. The form number, the sentence describing it, and the pairing of the old form with the form it became are all taken from the Income Tax Department’s own published forms concordance, and are reproduced as the department wrote them — including its abbreviations and its occasional typing errors. Everything else on this page is ours: the plain-English account of what the form is, the reading of which provision requires it, the grouping the form sits in, the note on where you meet it, and the selection of cases. The department has not said that this form serves that section; we have read that off the description and off its own section concordance, and we can be wrong. Before you rely on any of it, open the form.