The Income Tax Department has released all income tax return (ITR) forms for the assessment year 2026-27, enabling individuals, businesses, and other entities to begin filing their returns for the financial year 2025-26.
However, from April 1, 2026, transactional forms such as tax deducted at source statements, remittances, Form 60, and Form 15G/15H would operate under the new simplified framework.
The return filed could be treated as defective, invalid, or even be considered as not filed at all.
The new income tax returns (ITR) form based on the I-T Act, 2025, will be notified prior to 2027-28 fiscal year, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said on Monday. The CBDT committee on simplification of ITR forms is carrying out extensive consultations with tax experts, institutional bodies, and field formations of the I-T Department, he said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
"Taxpayers with income from shares, mutual funds, crypto, ESOPs, or derivatives often incorrectly use ITR-1 instead of ITR-2 or ITR-3."
With more granular reporting and enhanced data matching, mismatches are likely to be identified more quickly.
The Income Tax department has enabled online filing for ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-4 (Sugam) for the Assessment Year 2026-27, allowing small and medium taxpayers to file returns for income earned in the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The income tax department has notified ITR forms 1 and 4 for assessment year (AY) 2025-26 that are to be filed by individuals and entities with total income of up to Rs 50 lakh a year. Now individuals having long-term capital gains of up to Rs 1.25 lakh in a fiscal year can also file ITR-1.
The income tax department has notified all seven income tax return forms for assessment year 2025-26. While ITR forms 1 and 4, which are filed by small and medium taxpayers, were notified on April 29; ITR-7, filed by trusts and charitable institutions, was notified on May 11.
The Income Tax department on Friday said it has notified I-T return forms 2, 3 and 5 for filing tax returns for assessment year 2024-25. The ITR-1, which is filed by individuals having a total income of up to Rs 50 lakh, and ITR-6 for companies were notified earlier in December 2023, and January 2024, respectively.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has proposed a new common income-tax return (ITR), with greater focus on disclosing income from virtual digital assets or crypto assets and foreign equity and debt instruments held by resident Indians. For non-resident Indians, the draft ITR seeks exhaustive details ranging from nature of business, permanent establishment (PE), business connection, whether the entity has significant economic presence (SEP) in India, along with the number of users in India. The ITR protocol for NRIs could widen the scope of the SEP principle that was introduced in the Finance Bill 2018-19, and the explicitly defined 'business connection' to include provision of download of data or software, if aggregate payments from such transactions exceed a prescribed amount, or if a multinational's interaction is with a prescribed number of users.
It also said that over 1.38 crore entities have already filed their income-tax returns till now.
As these forms are quite elaborate, their early notification will give assessees more time to get the documentation and paperwork ready, and hence make complete disclosures while filing their returns.
Some of the disclosures in the ITR form, under review at present, increases procedural hassles for expats
The new ITR forms have shifted the entire onus on the taxpayers to prove their claim for deductions, expenses or exemptions.
The ITR forms were put on hold by the ministry last month.
Salaried taxpayers should not use these forms blindly to file their income-tax returns.
The Income Tax department has notified forms for filing I-T returns for 2020-21 fiscal, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said on Thursday. "Keeping in view the ongoing crisis due to COVID pandemic and to facilitate the taxpayers, no significant change has been made to the ITR Forms in comparison to the last year's ITR Forms. "Only the bare minimum changes necessitated due to amendments in the Income-tax Act, 1961 have been made," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement. The Income Tax returns (ITR) forms ask taxpayers if they are opting for a new tax regime.
However, the department has not changed ITRs significantly, considering Covid-19 crisis.
Taxpayers should consider ITR-U if they omitted income, wrongly claimed deductions or exemptions, or made reporting errors that led to a shortfall in tax payment.
The Income Tax Department has clarified that the deadline for ITR filing for Assessment Year 2025-26 is September 15 and there is no further extension as circulated on social media. In a late night post on X on September 14, the department termed "fake" a statement in circulation on social media stating that the due date of filing ITRs has been further extended to September 30, 2025.
Taxpayers required to file ITR-2 or ITR-3 can now download the Excel utilities from the I-T department's e-filing portal, fill in their details offline.
The government on Monday extended the due date for filing income tax returns (ITRs) for Assessment Year 2025-26 by a day to September 16 as technical glitches disrupted filings on the last day. A record over 7.3 crore ITRs were filed till September 15, surpassing last year's 7.28 crore, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a post on X.
Investors should do thorough due diligence when selecting a platform.
Learn to track your ITR's progress and correct any errors.
'AIS helps taxpayers check whether all income streams and reportable transactions -- such as interest from old bank accounts, small dividend receipts or transactions across multiple brokers -- have been properly disclosed.' 'Mismatches between these transactions and declared income may trigger automated notices or scrutiny.'
Form ITR-B allows the assessee to claim TDS (tax deducted at source) and TCS (tax collected at source) credit against undisclosed income.
Taxpayers should reconcile returns with AIS, Form 26AS and maintain all supporting records.
Master the online ITR filing process and then learn the differences between the old and new tax regimes to pick your best option.
'Is taxable amount above 1 Lac is also to be shown as income from other sources?'
Have income tax-related questions? Ask rediffGURUS Mihir Tanna, Vipul Bhavsar, T S Khurana, Vivek Lala and Anil Rego.
The Income Tax department on Friday said it has made available the excel utility for ITR-1 and ITR-4 for AY 2025-26, which will enable taxpayers to file their income tax returns. "The Excel Utility for ITR-1 and ITR-4 for AY 2025-26 has been enabled and is now available for taxpayers," the Income Tax department said in a post on X.
Ask rediffGURU and tax expert Mihir Tanna your income tax-related questions.
rediffGURU Vipul Bhavsar answers readers' personal income tax queries.
From the financial year 2025-2026, the government has introduced a new column in the tax return form for presumptive taxpayers, requiring them to disclose their year-end investments. This requirement was not present last year.
Filing a belated return is far better than not filing at all.
Errors in filing income-tax returns frequently lead to scrutiny notices, additional liabilities, or delayed refunds.
rediffGURU T S Khurana answers readers' personal income tax queries
'Filing a nil ITR serves as a formal declaration to the tax authorities that your earnings fell below the taxable threshold in the given financial year, and you had no tax liability during that period.'
A new schedule has been added to report income from cryptocurrencies and other Virtual Digital Assets.
