income rom salary

Salary, in simple words, means remuneration of a person, which he has received
from his employer for rendering services to him. But receipts for all kinds of
services rendered cannot be taxed as salary. The remuneration received by
professionals like doctors, architects, lawyers etc. cannot be covered under salary
since it is not received from their employers but from their clients. So, it is taxed
under business or profession head. In order to understand what is included in
salary, let us discuss few characteristics of salary.
Characteristics of Salary
1. The relationship of payer and payee must be of employer and employee
for an income to be categorized as salary income. For example: Salary
income of a Member of Parliament cannot be specified as salary, since it is
received from Government of India which is not his employer.
2. The Act makes no distinction between salary and wages, though generally
salary is paid for non-manual work and wages are paid for manual work.
3. Salary received from employer, whether one or more than one is included
in this head.
4. Salary is taxable either on due basis or receipt basis which ever matures
earlier:
i) Due basis – when it is earned even if it is not received in the previous
year.
ii) Receipt basis – when it is received even if it is not earned in the previous
year.
iii) Arrears of salary- which were not due and received earlier are taxable
when due or received, which ever is earlier.
5. Compulsory deduction from salary such as employees’ contribution to
provident fund, deduction on account of medical scheme or staff welfare
scheme etc. are examples of instances of application of income. In these
cases, for computing total income, these deductions have to be added
back.
INCOMES FORMING PART OF SALARY: I
Section 17 of the Act gives an inclusive definition of salary. Broadly, it includes:
1. Basic salary
2. Fees, Commission and Bonus
3. Taxable value of cash allowances
4. Taxable value of perquisites
5. Retirement Benefits
Although, all the components of salary income are included in salary, there are
certain incomes in each of these categories, which are either fully exempt or
exempt upto a certain limit. The aggregate of the above incomes, after the
exemption(s) available, if any, is known as ‘Gross Salary’. From the ‘Gross