New income tax form on foreign travel disclosure to be reconsidered
The government will come out with simplified ITR forms, it was officially announced
New Delhi: The government said on Saturday that new income tax return (ITR) forms that require disclosure of details regarding bank accounts and foreign trips undertaken by an individual will be reconsidered, a move that comes after criticism from tax experts and others.
The government will come out with simplified ITR forms, it was officially announced.
"The Finance Minister has called me from Washington and said the whole matter related to new ITR form will be reconsidered. The government will simplify the ITR form," Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das said.
This decision comes in the wake of difficulties expressed by various sections and tax experts on the new ITR forms in relation to financial year 2014-15, he said.
There has been criticism of the new forms with experts and consultants saying government was seeking too much data. They felt that the addition of new information would make the process of filing returns difficult.
On Friday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy making body of the Income Tax department, notified the new ITR forms for the current assessment year, seeking additional details to check the menace of black money.
As it stands, the new ITR forms, including the ITR-1 and ITR-2, require an assessee to furnish the number of bank accounts held by the individual "at any time (including opened/closed) during the previous year" with the last balance in the account on March 31 of the just concluded fiscal year.
The assessee will also have to furnish the name of the bank, account numbers, their addresses, IFSC codes and any possible joint account holder.
When it comes to disclosure of foreign travel, the taxman wants the assessee's passport number, its place of issuance, countries visited, number of times such sojourns made and in case of a resident taxpayer, the expenses incurred from "own sources in relation to such travel.
The new measures are part of the government's effort to tackle black money in a non-obtrusive manner. The details will add to the taxman's knowledge about a particular assessee.
The new ITR forms, this time, also feature a new column to include the Aadhaar number of the assessee.
International tax expert T P Ostwal said the new forms would make it cumbersome for taxpayers to keep details of their official visits and to seek those details from companies especially if they leave them mid-day during the year.
He felt that the government was expecting too much when it asked people undertaking pleasure trips to file such details.
Mr Ostwal also said that some of the information government was asking is already available from other sources including the annual information returns (AIRs).
Echoing similar views, Amit Maheshwari, partner at Ashok Maheshwari & Associates, said, "The new forms are expected to increase the compliance burden of the tax payers and would make compliance more onerous. One gets a feeling that some measures have been brought without doing a thorough cost benefit analysis."
Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted, "FM Shri. @arunjaitley (Finance Minister Arun Jaitley) responds to the issue of I-T returns. Shall review the addl (additional) IT compliance requirements. Aims to simplify the process."