Income Tax Refund: Govt Not Considering Modifications in ITR Form, Say Sources

“It’s an open fact that in India, only a tiny segment of people pay taxes and all those who should be paying their taxes are actually not paying their taxes,” sources said.

The I-T Department is relying more and more on voluntary compliance and, hence, expenditure data collected from third parties through SFT is the best and the most effective non-intrusive method to catch evaders, the sources said.

The Income Tax Department currently receives information like cash deposit/withdrawal from saving bank accounts, sale/purchase of immovable property, credit card payments, purchase of shares, debentures, foreign currency, mutual funds, among others.

It receives such information “specified persons” like banks, mutual funds, institutions issuing bonds and registrars or sub-registrars with regard to individuals having high-value financial transactions since the financial year 2016 onwards.

In 2020-21 Budget, the government revised the format of Form 26AS, stating that all such information from different SFTs would be shown in the new Form 26AS. It is an annual consolidated tax statement that can be accessed from the income-tax website by taxpayers using their permanent account number (PAN).