ITR filing Alert: Income Tax Department reverses change in tax filing; now do this to avoid hardship

ITR filing Alert: The Income Tax Department has reversed its decision to change ITR filing rules for the joint property owners and for those who have paid Rs 1 lakh electricity bill in a financial year. It has also reversed its decision in regard to the changes announced for the earning individuals who traveled overseas spending Rs 2 lakh or more. Now, the Income-Tax department has made it clear that there is no change in ITR Form-1 (Sahaj) and ITR Form-4 (Sugam) and an earning individual can continue to file ITR as was the case earlier.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes reversed the changes made in ITR Form-1 (Sahaj) and ITR Form-4 (Sugam) through a statement citing, “After the notification, concerns have been raised that the changes are likely to cause hardship in the case of individual taxpayers."

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Speaking on the CBDT decision, SEBI registered tax and investment expert Jitendra Solanki said, "the Income-Tax Department has reversed its decision of barring the earning individuals to give this information in ITR-1 and ITR-2 but they still have to give this information while filing their ITR. Now, an earning individual will have to give all the information like electricity bill paid in a financial year, money spent on overseas travel and joint property details in ITR-1 itself. So, this decision to reverse the earlier decision dated 6th January 2020 should not be assumed that they need not give this information to the Income Tax Department." Solanki said that not sharing this information would lead to hiding one's income, which is a crime.

Jitendra Solanki further said that for those earning individuals who also hold Credit Cards should also reveal their card expenses in a financial year even though the rule says that the amount is above Rs 2 lakh in a financial year.