Justification report conversion to excel – TRACES
Steps to Download Justification Report from TRACES
In this post, we will be discussing the Justification Report conversion to Excel. Here, we start by defining justification reports and explaining how to download and convert them.
What is a justification report?
Justification Report is a document which serves as an annexure to the notice sent to the deductor. It consists of detailed information about the various defaults / errors that need to be rectified by the deductor by filing correction statements and payment of the necessary interest / fees / other dues. Additionally, the TRACES portal makes the Justification Report available. The user has to request and download the file from the TRACES portal.
Contents of Justification Report
The Justification Report consists of details of defaults / errors identified by the Income Tax Department (ITD) while processing the statement filed by the deductor for a particular quarter of a financial year. It provides detailed information about the defaults / errors that need to be corrected by the deductor by filing a correction statement and payment of the necessary interest / fees / other dues. Deductor can also provide the explanation for any of the errors identified.
The list of details that are present in the Justification Report as given these points:
- Short payment
- Short deduction
- Interest on short payment – default under section 201(1A)
- Interest on late payment – default under section 201(1A)
- Additional late payment interest
- Interest on short deduction – default under section 201(1A)
- Interest on late deduction – default under section 201(1A)
- Additional late deduction interest
- Short payment on account of late filing fee
- Additional late filing levy
- Interest under section 220(2)
Steps to Download Justification Report from TRACES
By entering the necessary KYC information, one can request and download a Justification Report from the TRACES portal.
Steps to request for the Justification Report are as shown below;
- Login to TRACES portal with user login details
- Goto Request for Justification Report Download under Defaults
- Select the Financial Year, Quarter and Form Type
- Provide the requested details on screen for verification (PRN, One Challan details and three PAN – Amount combination linked to challan mentioned)
- On Proceed, the Request for Justification Report is placed
- Note the Request Number for further reference
Steps to download the Justification Report are as shown;
- Firstly, Goto Requested Downloads under Downloads
- Enter the Request Number
- Select the file and click on HTTP Download to download the file
- A zip file is downloaded to the path given
Justification report conversion to excel
The Justification Report from TRACES portal is in zip format. This file is protected by a password to limit unauthorised usage. The format of the password to unzip this file is JR_TAN_FormType_Quarter_FY.
For e.g., the password for the file of Financial Year 2016-17, Quarter 3, Form 26Q is JR_AAAA11111A_26Q_Q3_2016-17
This file is in text format. Convert this text file to an excel file to make it readable. This conversion is done using TRACES Justification Report Generation Utility. The user can download this utility from TRACES login.
In order to download TRACES Justification Report Generation Utility;
- Firstly, Goto Requested Downloads under Downloads
- Here click on Click here to download the utility
- Click on TRACES Justification Report Generation Utility v2.2
- Save in the required location of the system
The utility downloaded will be again in a zip format. On unzip, an excel file will be available. The process of Justification Report conversion to excel is as given below;
- Open the excel file
- Click on ‘Enable Content’ in the warning message to enable macros
- Select the Justification Report text file and the folder to save the output excel file and click on button ‘Generate Report’
- Data conversion from text to excel will be processed and saved in the folder
- Open the Justification Report excel file from the folder.
We have reached the conclusion of the Justification Report conversion to Excel. If you have any queries or doubts, please leave them in the comment section below.
