What Has Changed in Income Tax Filing From the Last ITR Season?

From time to time, the Income Tax Department brings about changes in its ITR forms to simplify the overall procedure of filing taxes. Likewise, for the financial year 2022-2023, there have been several noteworthy updates which taxpayers should know about. 

Read on to learn the changes in FY 2022-23 ITR forms!

Updates in the FY 2022-23 tax filing system

Some major updates in the FY 2022-23 ITR forms are as follows:

Regime preference in previous years

While filing your taxes this year, you will find a new questionnaire in ITR forms 3 and 4. The IT department has added them in order to determine whether the taxpayer has chosen to file his/her taxes via the new regime in previous years. 

Disclosure for intraday trading

There is a new section in the forms where you need to disclose your income from intraday trading (if any). It can be found under the newly introduced section ‘Trading Account’. 

Balance sheet reporting 

You will find a slight change in the balance sheet reporting section in this year’s ITR forms. There is a new section under ‘Source of Funds’ called ‘Advances’. There, you must declare all the advances you may have received within the financial year from individuals mentioned under Section 40A(2)(b) of the IT Act. 

Salary and income from other sources

You will notice a new disclosure for ‘Income from retirement benefit accounts’. Here, you can provide information on the taxable income on which you might have availed tax relief under Section 89A in previous years. 

Crypto/Virtual Digital Assets (VDA)

You now have to add all digital asset transaction details along with their dates of purchase and sale under the section ‘Schedule – VDA’. Moreover, if your profits from crypto sales fall under capital gains, you must provide a quarterly breakup under the Capital Gains Schedule.  

Disclosure for foreign institutional investors

In the FY 2022-23 ITR forms, foreign institutional investors (FIIs or FPIs) need to furnish their SEBI registration numbers. This measure has been introduced by the IT department in order to gain additional disclosure on such entities. 

When will the new ITR forms be available?

The new ITR forms for the financial year 2022-23 have been made available to the public from 10^th February 2023. Individual taxpayers who do not need auditing have until 31^st July 2023 to submit their Income Tax Returns. 

Final Word  

Discussed above are the small but important updates in the FY 2022-23 ITR forms that you should take note of before filing your returns. In addition, as per the Finance Minister’s Budget 2023 speech, the Central Government is working towards making a Common ITR form to further simplify the process of filing taxes. It is currently under progress and in future, taxpayers can look forward to filing all their income details in one single form.