On 15th April 2015, the Income Tax Department had notified the Income Tax Return Forms ITR 1, 2 and 4S for Assessment Year 2015-16 (i.e., the financial year or the previous year 2014-15). These ITR forms were criticized for being lengthy and for requiring details about foreign visits (and expenditure thereon) and details of all bank accounts (including account number, balance), etc. At that time the Government had promised that these forms would be simplified. Now, in view of various complaints and suggestions received in this regard, the Income Tax department has simplified the above ITR forms. However, since the software for these forms is still under preparation, they are likely to be available for e-filing only by 3rd week of June 2015. In view of this reason, the time limit for filing the above IT Return forms is also being extended up to 31st August, 2015 instead of the normal date of 31st July 2015. It is not clear, however, whether the normal date of 31st July 2015 will continue to be the last date for filing returns for other IT Return forms (such as ITR-3, ITR-4, ITR-5, ITR-6 and ITR-7) or for these other forms also the last date of filing returns has been extended till 31st August 2015.
In any case, the above IT Return forms, namely ITR-1, ITR-2 and ITR-4S have been simplified in the following manner for the convenience of the taxpayers:
(1) Individuals having exempt income without any ceiling (other than agricultural income exceeding Rs. 5,000) can now file Form ITR 1 (Sahaj). Similar simplification is also proposed for individuals/HUF in respect of Form ITR 4S (Sugam).
(2) At present individuals/HUFs having income from more than one house property and capital gains are required to file Form ITR-2. With a view to provide for a simplified form for the individuals/HUFs who file Form ITR-2 but do not have capital gains, a new Form ITR 2A has been created which can be filed by an individual or HUF who does not have capital gains, income from business/profession or foreign asset/foreign income.
(3) In lieu of foreign travel details, now only Passport Number, if available, would be required to be given in Forms ITR-2 and ITR-2A. Details of foreign trips or expenditure thereon are not required to be furnished.
(4) As regards bank account details in all these forms, only the IFS code (IFSC), account number of all the current/savings account which are held at any time during the previous year will be required to be filled-up. The details of balance in these accounts will not be required to be furnished. Details of dormant accounts which are not operational during the last three years are not required to be furnished (i.e., for dormant accounts, even the account number and IFSC may not be necessary).
(5) An individual who is not an Indian citizen and is in India on a business, employment or student visa (expatriate), would not mandatorily be required to report the foreign assets acquired by him during the previous years in which he was non-resident if no income is derived from such assets during the relevant previous year.
(6) In Form ITR 2 and the new Form ITR 2A, the main form will not contain more than 3 pages, and other information will be captured in the Schedules which will be required to be filled only if applicable, otherwise these Schedules can be left blank.
