Income Tax Return: Filing ITRs to become easy as CBDT notifies new Form 26AS

Form 26AS contains details of tax deducted, tax paid and tax deposited along with some other taxable income, like interest on FD etc, on which tax has not been deducted.

Last year in the midst of the Income Tax Return (ITR) filling session, the Income Tax (I-T) Department had added a new sheet in relevant ITR Forms named Schedule 112 A – From sale of equity share in a company or unit of equity oriented fund or unit of a business trust on which STT is paid under section 112A – while modifying the ITR on July 11, 2019.

The Schedule contains as many as 15 fields for each transaction that amounts to a capital gain or loss from redemption of shares, equity MFs and/or unit of a business trust. For many amateur salaried investors, it was a hard task to recall all the transactions and to find details like ISIN Code etc, especially for mutual fund (MF) schemes.

With more than 1 crore ITRs already filed for the Assessment Year (AY) 2019-20 till July 11, 2019 and people finding it hard to get ISIN Code of MF schemes, the I-T Department later clarified that Schedule 112 A was optional and assessees may provide consolidated data on capital gain/loss, saying, “Schedule 112A and 115AD(1)(iii) of long term capital gain are provided in the Income Tax Return software as per the Instructions to the Notified ITR form and based on taxpayer feedback.Taxpayers have an option to either enter the Scrip wise details of long term capital gains in Schedule 112A and 115AD(1)(iii) so that the correct values are populated in the CG Schedule or enter the self-calculated aggregate value of long term capital gains directly under respective items in schedule CG in terms with Sec 112A or 115AD(1)(iii) without entering scripwise details. Taxpayers may exercise either option based on their convenience.”

To make the things easy for the assessees this year, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified a new 26AS, the form that contains details of tax deducted, tax paid and tax deposited along with some other taxable income, like interest on FD etc, on which tax has not been deducted.

“The new Form 26AS is a comprehensive financial statement which apart from TDS and TCS also displays the financial transactions done during the year (above a certain limit) like share and mutual fund transactions, credit card bill payments etc. It also displays details of completed and pending income tax proceedings,” said CA Karan Batra, Founder and CEO of CharteredClub.com.

“This will help curb tax evasion as a lot of non-TDS information like share and MF transactions, credit card payments etc would also be displayed in the Form 26AS itself,” he added.

With all the transaction details available in a single place, it would be much easier for the assessees having share and/or property transactions to file their ITRs this year.