The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has introduced a new income tax Form - Saral-II, that aims at making the process of filing tax returns easier for individual taxpayers. The form is to be used to file the income tax returns for the financial year 2009-10(and the assessment year being 2010-11 ).
The Saral-II is a two-page form, mentioned by the Finance Minister in his budget speech for 2010-11. This form will enable individuals to enter relevant details in a simple format in only two pages. The form can also be downloaded from the Income Tax Department's website.
ITR-1 has been renamed Saral - II with E-filing available along the lines of last year ITR-1. New addition to the format of ITR-1 is that an assessee can show 'Income from House Property's. The house property income can be from one property only, and for more than one ITR-2 will be used.
An assessee can show loss from house property (interest paid) as a negative figure here. This should be deducted to obtain 'total income'. The salient features of Saral-II are that it is to be used by individual taxpayers having salary or pension income, income from one house (excluding brought forward loss from previous years) as well as income from other sources (excluding winnings from lottery). The introduction of Form Saral-II makes the filing of income tax returns easier for individual taxpayers, primarily having salary income and one house property.
'Income from House Property' has now been included in the new form, which was not added earlier . Also, all incomes under the head 'Other Sources' have been covered vis-a-vis only interest income and family pension covered in the previous form. As the process has been centralised, IT returns can be filed
anywhere in the country, at IT offices and even in the post offices. If a person has relocated, just the change of address needs to be intimated and the filing can be done at the new location.
One can also file returns electronically. Individuals can file returns through authorised intermediaries who digitise the data and send it to the IT Department.
It is, however, mandatory, for everybody filing income tax returns, to apply and get a PAN, and July 31st is the last date to file returns. The simplified form will make tax compliance easy for individual taxpayers. It is easy to comprehend and submit the requisite information without sending too much time on collecting the information. The coverage and compliance are expected to increase with this move.
