New forms seek more details from taxpayers, including bank accounts, passport number, foreign assets, Aadhaar
All taxpayers will have to disclose all their bank accounts, except dormant accounts, along with other details such as bank name, but do not have to disclose their bank balances.
Photo: Mint
New Delhi: The government on Tuesday notified the revised income tax return (ITR) forms that seek more details from taxpayers, including bank accounts, passport number, foreign assets and the unique identity number, or Aadhaar, in a bid to check tax evasion. The forms are, however, simpler than an earlier version, as promised by finance minister Arun Jaitley.
All taxpayers will have to disclose all their bank accounts, except dormant accounts, along with other details such as bank name, but do not have to disclose their bank balances.
Taxpayers—with the exception of those who fill ITR 1—will also have to disclose their passport numbers.
But they will not have to disclose the number of foreign trips they go on or how much they spend on these trips. The main sections of all these forms are under three pages long.
The tax department notified ITR 1, ITR 2, ITR 2A and ITR 4S.
While ITR 1 can be filled by a taxpayer with salary income and income from one house property, ITR 2A—the new simplified version of ITR 2—can be filled by those who have salary income and income from more than one house property but do not have any capital gains accruing to them or any foreign asset.
ITR 2 can be filled by individuals and Hindu undivided families having income from more than one house property and capital gains.
While the new forms will make filing the returns less tedious, the information sought by these forms will be enough to help tax authorities track foreign travel and financial transactions.
The tax return forms, with the exception of ITR 1, also ask for the Aadhaar number of the taxpayer in case the taxpayer has one.
The previous income tax return forms notified in April were criticized by taxpayers for their tedious and intrusive nature, prompting Jaitley to promise to revise them and make them simpler. These forms had sought extensive details about foreign trips as well as information about all bank accounts and bank balances.
Tapati Ghose, partner, Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP, said the tax return forms are trying to ensure that individuals take cognizance of the domestic and foreign income accruing to them and are not omitting anything. “As compared with last year, the income tax return forms seek many more details with regard to the foreign assets held, like the type of ownership and the income accruing from these assets. For domestic income also, the details sought regarding capital gains are much higher,” she said.
The government has been trying to curb black money both within and outside India and has introduced legislation to this effect. Archit Gupta, founder and chief executive officer, ClearTax, said the new ITR 2A form will make it much more simple to file tax returns.
“Taxpayers who don’t have capital gains but own more than one house property will be filing a much shorter new form 2A. Even those who have long-term capital gains accruing to them from the sale of shares on a stock exchange can fill form 2A,” Gupta said.
