New Income Tax Returns forms for the FY 2019-20 (AY 2020-21) has been notified by CBDT vide Notification No. 31/2020 Dated 29.05.2020. With this, forms notified earlier vide Notification No. 01/2020 Dated 03.01.2020 is withdrawn. As a result, few changes effected in Jan 2020 have been nullified in May 2020 for AY 2020-21. Details of all the notified ITR forms & its applicability for different classes of taxpayers is summarised as under:

ITR FORMS	APPLICABILITY
ITR 1	For Individual, being a Resident (other than Not Ordinarily Resident), having Total Income up to Rs. 50 Lakhs, having Income from Salaries, One House Property, Other Sources (Interest, gift, etc. without any deduction u/s 57 except in respect of family pension), and Agricultural Income up to Rs. 5,000/-. However, following categories of person cannot file return in ITR 1: i.        Who is either Director in a company ii.     Who invested in Unlisted Equity Shares iii.   Who have any assets or signing authorities of any account outside India iv.   Who have income taxable u/s 115BBDA (i.e., Dividend from domestic Company) & 115BBE (i.e., special income like unexplained cash credit, unexplained expenditure, etc). v.     Who Owns more than one house property vi.   Who has brought forward or carry forward loss under the head “Income from House Property”.
ITR 2	For Individuals and HUFs not having income from profits and gains of business or profession.
ITR 3	For individuals and HUFs having income from profits and gains of business or profession.
ITR 4	For Individuals, HUFs and Firms (other than LLP) being a Resident having Total Income up to Rs.50 Lakhs and having income from Business and Profession which is computed under sections 44AD, 44ADA or 44AE. Further, person mentioned above in (i) to (v) in ITR – 1 cannot file return in ITR-4 also. Also, person who have brought forward or carry forward loss under any head of income or agricultural income exceeding Rs. 5,000/- cannot file return in ITR-4.
ITR 5	All persons other than:- (i) Individual, (ii) HUF, (iii) Company and (iv) Person filing Form ITR-7
ITR 6	For Companies other than companies claiming exemption u/s 11
ITR 7	For persons including companies required to furnish return under sections 139(4A) or 139(4B) or 139(4C) or 139(4D).

Few of the important changes in ITR forms for the AY 2020-21 are as under:

1. Changes in ITR-V (Acknowledgement form): 
2. a)One of the important change is effected is in ITR-V (Ack. form) mechanism for AY 2020-21. After submission of ITR form, ITR will be displayed with a watermark “Not Verified” until the same is verified either electronically by EVC or by sending the same via post after manual signing. However, if ITR is uploaded with DSC then the final ITR-V without any watermark will be generated. The unverified acknowledgement is titled as ’INDIAN INCOME TAX RETURN VERIFICATION FORM’ whereas the final ITR-V is titled as ‘INDIAN INCOME TAX RETURN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT’.
3. b)This has been done to alert the taxpayer that the e-filed ITR form needs to be verified. The unverified form ITR-V will not contain any income, deduction and tax details. The new and changed ITR-V will only contain the basic information of the taxpayer Name and PAN and e-filing data like ITR Form No., e-Filing Acknowledgement Number, Filing section. Apart from these basic info, the form will have only the ‘Verification’ part. After verification, unverified ITR-V will get changed & can be downloaded.
4. c)In short, taxpayer will not get the final ITR acknowledgement until the same is verified.
5. d)It may be noted that in case (i) the return is filed without DSC or (ii) not verified by EVC & (iii) ITR-V is received by CPC, Bengaluru beyond 120 days then the date of receipt would be treated as date of filing income tax return for all the purposes.
6. Schedule DI – Details of Investment:

A new ‘Schedule DI – Details of Investment’ is added to report investment/expenditure made between 01.04.2020 to 30.06.2020. This is added in view of time extension granted earlier till 30.06.2020 due to Covid-2019.

3. Joint Ownership & ITR-1 & 4:
   Joint Owners of House Property can file ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-4 (Sugam). Originally, when the form was notified on 03.01.2020, the filing of ITR-1 & 4 was not available to the person having a property in joint ownership.
4. Multiple bank accounts can be selected for refund credit:
   Earlier, only one bank account was allowed to be selected for refund credit. Now, multiple bank accounts are allowed to be selected for getting the refund credit. In case multiple accounts are selected for refund credit, then refund will be credited to one of the account decided by CPC after processing the return.
5. No Passport details required:

The details of passport Number as notified by the Notification 1/2020 have been removed.

6. High Value Transactions reporting [As required by 7^th proviso to section 139(1)]:
   Exclusive reporting is required for-
   (i) If cash deposit exceeds Rs. 1 Crore in one or more current accounts, then reporting of actual amount of deposit is required.
   (ii) If expenditure on travel to a foreign country for self or for any other person exceeds Rs. 2 Lakh, then report the actual amount expended is required.
   (iii) If incurred more than Rs. 1 lakh on electricity consumption, then report of the actual amount of bill is sought.
   These information are required to be given if any of the replies is in affirmative i.e. if any of the conditions is satisfied
7. Option for section 115BAA/115BAB in ITR-6:
   A new option is added in the ‘Filing Status’ section with regard to exercising of option of concessional tax rate u/s 115BAA/115BAB introduced by FA-2019. Option needs to be exercised in Form 10-IC/10-ID.
8. All ITR are now required to be filed online only except in case of a very senior citizen individual filing ITR-1 or ITR-4 where paper filing is allowed.

Taxpayer may note that the due date of all Income Tax Returns for AY 2020-21 has now been extended to 30^th November 2020.  Similarly, the tax audit due date is also extended to 31^st October 2020.

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