All You Need to Know About the New ITR Forms

The government has made several changes in the Income Tax Return (ITR) forms for the assessment year 2018-19. Most of these changes aim at getting more detailed information from the tax payers.

The following are some of the major changes in the ITR forms that you need to know:

Bank Details

Taxpayers don’t have to provide details for the cash deposited for the AY19 ITR anymore which was the case with the AY18 mainly as a monitoring mechanism in relation to the demonetization initiative. Plus, NRIs can now provide the details of a foreign bank account to get their IT refund. Previously, they had the provide details of an Indian bank account for the same for ITR 2 and 7.

Gender

Earlier, taxpayers had to specify their gender as male, female, or transgender in the ITR forms 2,3 and 4 last year. However, this year, this field has been removed from the ITR forms.

Salary and Property Details

Earlier, in the ITR form 1 and 4, taxpayers had to provide only the final taxable amount for income generated from salary and property. However, for AY19, they have to break down the incomes as additional rows have been added in the forms to specify taxable allowances, deductions under section 16, tax paid on local authorities for a property, interest paid on a home loan, etc.

Fine for Late ITR Filing

A new fee has been added under Section 234F for the taxpayers failing to file their ITR on or before the due dates in consideration of Section 139(1). The fee is:

• 5,000 if the ITR is filed after the due date but before December 31 of the AY, or Rs 1,000 if total income is below Rs. 5 lakhs.
• 10,000 in all other cases.

Other than these, many other sections have been added in the Finance Act, 2017 regarding carbon credits, TDS, GST, etc.

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