The Income Tax department has notified the new set of ITR forms, including a three-page simplified one, for taxpayers to file their returns for assessment year 2015-16.
The Finance Ministry published the gazette order on Tuesday. Here are six things that you need to know about the new ITR forms.
• Taxpayers and other entities can now file their Income Tax Returns (ITR) till August 31.
• ITR-2A – to be filled by those individuals and HUFs whose income is not from a business or by way of capital gains and do not hold foreign assets – only asks for the passport number of the tax-filer, with the words “if available”.
• ITR-2 – for individuals and HUFs having income from business or profession – asks individuals to declare if they hold any foreign assets abroad or have income from “any source outside India.”
• Filers now will have to declare only the “total number of savings and current bank accounts” held by them “at any time during the previous year (excluding dormant accounts).”
• The form also has space to fill up the IFSC code of the bank. Tax filers have the option to indicate the bank account in which they would want their refund credited.
• The I-T department has also sought the Aadhaar number of filers and has also given the option of providing two e-mail ids to it.
The new deadline was set in this regard by the government after it dropped the earlier forms which had attracted criticism for seeking numerous additional details like that of filers’ foreign travel and dormant bank accounts.
(With inputs from PTI)
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