Signing TDS Returns with a Digital Signature Certificate (Forms 138, 140, 143, 144)

Every quarter, a deductor has to file a TDS statement and then verify it. Verification is done either with a digital signature certificate or with an electronic verification code. For companies and for most deductors filing at any scale, the DSC route is the practical one, and it is the one that causes the most avoidable failures.

From 1 April 2026 the statements themselves have been renumbered under the Income-tax Act, 2025. The signing mechanics are unchanged. The form names on your screen are not.

The TDS statement forms have new numbers

TDS and TCS statements are now filed under Section 397(3)(b) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, read with Rule 219 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026. The forms map as follows.

Statement	Old form	Current form
TDS on salary	24Q	Form 138
TDS other than salary, resident deductees	26Q	Form 140
TDS on payments to non-residents	27Q	Form 144
TCS statement	27EQ	Form 143

The old forms remain valid for transactions up to 31 March 2026. A statement filed for a later period that still carries the old section codes will fail validation, which is worth knowing before you blame the DSC for a rejection that is actually a codes problem.

Quarterly due dates

Quarter	Period	Due date
Q1	April to June	31 July
Q2	July to September	31 October
Q3	October to December	31 January
Q4	January to March	31 May

What kind of DSC you need

A Class 3 individual DSC in the name of the person authorised to verify the statement, issued by a licensed certifying authority. Two details decide whether it will work:

• The PAN in the certificate must match the PAN of the authorised signatory registered against the TAN. A DSC issued in a personal capacity with a different PAN spelling will be rejected.
• The signatory must be the one registered on the portal. A DSC belonging to a director who was never registered as the signatory for that TAN cannot sign, however senior they are.

The certificate is issued on a FIPS-compliant USB token. It cannot be copied off the token, which is why the person holding the token has to be available at filing time, or the token has to be with the person who files.

The sequence that actually works

1. Prepare the statement using the Return Preparation Utility, and validate it through the File Validation Utility. Fix every validation error before you go near the signing step.
2. Register the DSC against the TAN on the portal, under the profile of the authorised signatory. This is a one-time step per certificate, and it has to be redone every time the certificate is renewed.
3. Install the signing utility and the token drivers on the machine you will file from, and make sure the browser can see the token.
4. Upload the validated file and sign it with the registered DSC.
5. Download the acknowledgement and keep it. This is your evidence of filing date.
6. Download Form 16 and Form 16A from TRACES once the statement is processed, and issue them within the time allowed.

Why signing fails, and what to do

• Certificate expired. A DSC is typically issued for one, two or three years. Renewal is a fresh certificate, and it must be re-registered on the portal. Nothing carries over.
• PAN mismatch. The most common cause. The certificate PAN and the registered signatory PAN must be identical.
• Signatory changed but the portal was not updated. When a director or authorised person leaves, the registration has to be updated before the next quarter, not on the due date.
• Token drivers or Java components not installed on the filing machine, or a browser that no longer supports the applet.
• System date and time wrong on the filing machine, which invalidates the signature.
• Certificate revoked by the certifying authority, usually because the underlying identity documents lapsed.

Almost all of these are discovered on the due date, because that is the only day anyone tries to sign. Check the certificate expiry and the registered signatory a fortnight before each quarter closes.

DSC or electronic verification code

Some deductors may verify using an electronic verification code instead of a DSC. Where that option is available to you it removes the token dependency, but it introduces a different one: the mobile and email registered against the account have to be current and accessible. For an organisation where the authorised signatory travels, or where filings are handled by a finance team rather than by the signatory personally, a DSC is usually the more reliable arrangement.

Consequences of filing late

A late TDS statement attracts a daily fee for the period of delay, subject to a ceiling linked to the tax deducted, and a separate penalty exposure where the delay is substantial. Deductees also cannot see the credit in their annual information statement until the statement is processed, which generates a stream of queries from employees and vendors. A signing failure on the due date is therefore not a technical inconvenience; it has a price.

How TAXAJ handles TDS compliance

We prepare and file the quarterly statements, hold the signatory registration current, issue the certificates to deductees, and reconcile deductions against the books before each filing rather than at the year end. If you need a certificate issued or renewed, that is our digital signature certificate service.

TDS usually sits inside a wider compliance engagement. See business tax filing, payroll outsourcing where salary TDS is the driver, or all-in-one business compliance. If your deductees include non-residents, they may be able to reduce the deduction with a certificate under Section 395.

Book a call or start in the TAXAJ client portal.

Procedural requirements on the filing portals change from time to time. Confirm the current process before your next filing.