As a CA who handles Income tax litigation (notices and cases): A lot of tax disputes start because of a simple "DIY" filing mistake.

I spend a lot of my time arguing cases before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT). Lately, I’ve been noticing a frustrating pattern with people who trade shares and mutual funds.

Most people assume tax litigation is only for tax evaders. It’s not. It’s happening to honest investors who file their own ITR without realizing they missed a mandatory legal disclosure.

Filing isn't just data entry. It’s not just about copying your broker’s P&L report into a box. For example, when you sell equity, it’s shockingly easy to mess up Schedule 112A, miscalculate the cost base on corporate actions like splits or bonuses, or miss asset disclosures. The department's automated systems flag these mismatches instantly, and fixing a past disclosure error later is a massive, expensive headache.

With capital gains rules getting more complex every season, I'm genuinely curious how the DIY crowd here handles this. Do you actually trust automated broker summaries to match the strict legal definitions in the ITR forms perfectly, or do you find yourself cross-checking the actual tax law manually?