Donations, online gaming, bank accounts: ITR forms seek more disclosures

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Now is the right time to start filing your income tax return (ITR) for fiscal year 2023-24 (assessment year 2024-25), for which the window will remain open till 31 July. This is because your Annual Information Statement (AIS), which captures your income and TDS (tax deducted at source) details, must have been updated by now. You can verify these details by tallying them with Form 26AS and Form 16 provided by your employer.

Doing it early will give you time to collect all the information and file the ITR correctly. First, you should reconcile the information in Form 26AS with TDS certificates, Form 16 and bank statements. Then, check whether the information captured in 26AS is reflecting correctly in AIS.

If not, it could be because your AIS has still not been updated. You can wait one more week and download the AIS again. If it is still incorrect, the AIS is erroneous, and you must report it to the Income Tax (I-T) Department.

You can do this on the same website from where you download the AIS. Beware any mismatch between the AIS and Form 26AS can get you a tax notice. Further, some changes have been introduced in the ITR forms.

“ITR-1 remains largely unchanged. However, ITR-2 and ITR-3 feature a few modifications aimed at enhancing the reporting required for claiming specific deductions," said Neeraj Agarwala, partner, Nangia Andersen India. You may have to gather additional documents for some of these details.

Filing the ITR early will give you time to do so. For instance, the taxpayer has to get the 10BE certificate from the donee institution to claim deduction on donations under Section 80G. “Just getting a receipt is not enough.