Income Tax Department Unveils Draft Common ITR Form; Know More

On Tuesday, the Income Tax Department revealed a common ITR form to help speed up the ITR filing process and enhance the experience for taxpayers. With the exception of ITR-7, which is used by charitable organisations and commercial trusts, it would incorporate all currently used income return forms.

The present ITR-1 and ITR-4 will continue to remain in effect. Such taxpayers will then have the choice to file their return in either the current form (ITR-1 or ITR-4) or the proposed common ITR form, depending on their convenience. Additionally, income taxpayers who submit their tax returns using ITR-2, ITR-3, ITR-5, and ITR-6 forms will no longer be able to do so once this common ITR form and its associated utilities are notified. The Income Tax department has asked for suggestions from the stakeholders and public on the ITR draft by December 15th. After that, the Income Tax department will notify everyone once the common form has been finalised.

Suggested read: Belated ITR Filing For FY 2021-2022: All You Need To Know

The Income Tax department stated that the existing ITRs are designated forms in which the taxpayer is compelled to review every schedule, regardless of whether or not that specific schedule is applicable. This extends the time needed to submit the ITRs, which may put taxpayers in situations where problems may have been avoided. But under this new common ITR, taxpayers will not be needed to read the schedules that don’t apply to them while submitting the draft form. It will significantly shorten the time it takes for individuals and other non-business types of taxpayers to file their ITRs and make submitting returns easier. The I-T department specified saying, “It intends the smart design of schedules in a user-friendly manner with a better arrangement, logical flow, and increased scope of pre-filling.”

In the common ITR form the questions are arranged and worded in a way that, if any question receives a ‘no’ response, the taxpayer will not see other questions that are connected to it. Instructions have been provided that include information on the relevant schedules to help taxpayers with submitting the return. This will spare the taxpayer’s time and energy and relieve him of the added burden of reading through every section of the ITR as required by the current ITRs.