The Central Board of Direct Taxes on Friday notified a simpler, one-page form for filing income tax returns. It also made it mandatory to quote the Aadhaar number and disclose bank deposits of more than Rs 2 lakh, post demonetisation, for the 2017-18 assessment year.
The new ITR form-1 (Sahaj) can be filed by an individual having an income of up to Rs 50 lakh from one house property and other sources like interest. Currently, this form is filed by salaried employees and ITR-2 by individuals and HUFs (Hindu Undivided Families) whose income does not include income from business.
Form-1 will replace the seven-page form, cutting down columns on deductions from income claimed. Various parts of the ITR form-1, particularly those relating to tax computation and deductions, have been rationalised and simplified for easy compliance, said CBDT spokesperson Meenakshi J Goswami.
This will reduce the compliance burden to a significant extent on the individual tax payer. “This initiative will benefit more than two crore tax payers, who will be eligible to file their return of income in this simplified form,” she said.
Simultaneously, the number of ITR forms have been reduced from the existing nine to seven. The existing ITR forms ITR-2, ITR-2A and ITR-3 have been rationalised and a single ITR-2 has been notified in place of these three forms. Consequently, ITR-4 and ITR-4S (Sugam) have been renumbered as ITR-3 and ITR-4 (Sugam), respectively.
There will be no change in the manner of filing of ITR forms and all the returns are to be filed electronically. The e-filing facility for ITR-1 is enabled from April 1 and ITRs can be filed till the stipulated deadline of July 31.
However, where return is furnished in ITR-1 (Sahaj) or ITR-4 (Sugam), an individual aged 80 and above, an individual or HUF whose income does not exceed Rs 5 lakh and who has not claimed any refund in the return of income have an option to file returns in the paper form.
The benefit of the new ITR form will not be available for the following category of taxpayers — those earning a dividend income of more than Rs 10 lakh, whose total income includes cash credits, unexplained investments and unexplained money. The notified ITR forms are available on the department’s official website www.incometaxindia.gov.in
Published 31 March 2017, 20:14 IST