What the official e-Filing help pages say
The Income Tax Department's e-Filing portal has help pages for filing ITR-1 (Sahaj) online. This article only reports what those pages state, and the pages are about ITR-1 specifically. Other return forms have their own help pages.
The ITR-1 FAQ lists "bank statement / passbook" among the documents to refer to when filing. It also says you would need to download the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and keep copies of Form 16, and elsewhere says to download AIS and Form 26AS and check the actual TDS, TCS and tax paid.
This is general information, not tax or legal advice. Your situation may differ, so check the linked incometax.gov.in pages for the rules and forms that apply to you.
Interest income and your bank records
The ITR-1 user manual lists "Interest from Savings Accounts" and "Interest from Deposits (Bank / Post Office / Cooperative Society)" among the types of income that can be reported on that form. The pages read for this article do not set out how to calculate interest, so this article does not either.
In practice, interest shows up as transactions in your savings account statement or passbook. Having those entries in one place makes it easier to compare them with the figures the portal shows you.
Documents are not attached, but should be kept
According to the ITR-1 FAQ, ITRs are annexure-less forms, so you are not required to attach any document, and no documents are to be attached along with ITR-1. The same FAQ adds that you need to keep these documents for situations where they need to be produced before tax authorities.
The pages read do not state how long to keep them, so no retention period is given here. Check the portal or the Income Tax Department for that.
How a spreadsheet can help you organise statements
Passbook entries and statements often arrive as PDFs. Converting a statement into a spreadsheet puts each transaction in its own row so you can filter for interest credits and total them. The spreadsheet is a working copy. It does not replace the bank's statement, and nothing on the portal pages says a spreadsheet meets any requirement.
A made-up example:
Date Narration Credit Debit Balance
2026-06-30 Interest credit - savings 412.00 25,412.00
2026-07-04 UPI payment - utilities 1,150.00 24,262.00
2026-09-30 Interest credit - savings 398.00 24,660.00Filter the narration column for interest, sum the credits for the financial year, and compare the result with the figures in AIS and Form 26AS. The ITR-1 pages say to reconcile any discrepancy in TDS with the employer, tax deductor or bank. Check the converted totals against the opening and closing balances on the original statement first. If you use a converter such as PDFtoRow, keep the original files too.
Convert Bank Statement PDFs Cleanly with PDFtoRow
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Frequently Asked Questions
According to the ITR-1 FAQ on incometax.gov.in, ITRs are annexure-less forms and no documents are to be attached along with ITR-1, but you should keep the documents in case they need to be produced before tax authorities.
The ITR-1 FAQ lists "bank statement / passbook" among the documents to refer to when filing.
The ITR-1 user manual lists interest from savings accounts and interest from deposits (bank, post office, cooperative society) as eligible income types for that form.
Primary Evidence & Official References
- File ITR-1 (Sahaj) Online - FAQs — incometax.gov.in (Verified 2026-10-29). Official source documentation →
- File ITR-1 (Sahaj) Online User Manual — incometax.gov.in (Verified 2026-10-29). Official source documentation →