The government on Tuesday notified simplified income tax return (ITR) forms for the financial year 2015-16. The new Forms — ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-2A and ITR—4S are simpler than the ones proposed by the Income Tax Department earlier.
Taxpayers will have to declare their total number of savings and current bank accounts held by them at any time during the previous year. This excludes dormant accounts, according to the new forms.
In ITR-2A, to be filled by those individuals and Hindu undivided families who do not have income from either business, profession or by way of capital gains and do not hold foreign assets, only the passport number of the filer is asked for, and that too ‘if available’.
According the newly published gazette order, taxpayers can now file their ITR forms till August 31. In April, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) notified the new ITR forms seeking additional details on bank accounts and foreign travels to check the menace of black money raising fierce criticism.
That prompted Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to intervene and ask CBDT to reconsider the forms.
The assessee will also have to furnish the name of the bank, account numbers, their address, IFSC code and any possible joint account holder. With regard to disclosure of foreign travel, the earlier forms sought details of assessee’s passport number, its place of issuance, countries visited, number of times such sojourns made and in case of a resident taxpayer, the expenses incurred from own sources in relation to such travel.
The new ITRs seek Aadhaar number of filers and gives options for providing two email ids.
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