IT department updates the income tax return forms 2 and 5 again

The income tax department has recently made further changes to the income tax return forms 2 and 5. The department had updated the forms as mentioned earlier in April this year.

The ‘News & Updates’ column on the income tax e-filing website says that the utilities of ITR-2 and ITR-5 have been updated to fix some bugs that were identified by the taxpayers while filling schedule FA using java utility of ITR-2, partners information in ITR-5 (java utility) and Part A General answer to investment fund query in the excel utility of ITR-5 form. 

The bug fixes will have no impact on the taxpayers, for whom these schedules are irrelevant, and on the XML schema. The taxpayers, who are required to fill the details in the schedules mentioned above, may have to download the latest version of utilities and generate XML again from the java or excel utility. These bugs were fixed and updated on the 22 July 2019 on the e-filing website. 

Also Read: ITR Filing: How to Claim Income Tax Refund Online

In addition to the aforementioned update, the department had issued a notice on 19 July clarifying that a new schedule introduced for reporting transaction wise details of long-term capital gains on equity and equity mutual funds is optional.

Prior to this clarification, the taxpayers were confused whether it is mandatory to report transaction wise details in ITR forms or not. 

Now a taxpayer can either report the aggregate capital gains in Schedule CG in the ITR-2 form or can use schedule 112A or schedule 115AD(1)(iii) to report scrip/transaction wise capital gains.

Schedule 112A will be used by resident individuals and Schedule 115AD(1)(iii) by non-resident individuals (NRI) to report capital gains from equity or equity-linked mutual funds. Taxpayers can choose the option while filing income tax returns for FY 2018-19 as per their convenience. The facility is available in ITR-2, 3, 4, and 5 return forms. 

The department has also extended the due date of filing income tax returns for the taxpayers who don’t have to get their accounts audited under any law to 31 August 2019 from 31 July 2019. Now, the taxpayers opting to report transaction wise capital gains can take their time and file their tax returns accurately.