Budget 2019: Soon these citizens will also have to file Income Tax Return (ITR)

Budget 2019 announcement saw some major changes being proposed regarding Income Tax Return (ITR) filing. At this point of time, only salaried individuals who pay taxes were required to file ITR at a scheduled date prescribed by Income-Tax department. However, soon even depositors and travellers will need to file ITR as well. This was proposed in her Budget speech by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. 

According to Sitharaman, it is proposed to make return filing compulsory for persons, who have deposited more than Rs. 1 crore in a current account in a year, or who have expended more than Rs 2 lakh on foreign travel or more than Rs. 1 lakh on electricity consumption in a year or who fulfils the prescribed conditions.

This move is announced to ensure that persons who enter into high value transactions also furnish returns of income. 

Further, it is proposed that, whose income becomes lower than maximum amount not chargeable to tax due to claim of rollover benefit of capital gains shall also be required to furnish the return. 

At present, as per the guidelines, is a prescribed form through which the particulars of income earned by a person in a financial year and taxes paid on such income are communicated to the Income-tax Department.

There are different modes of filing ITR such as -   (i) by furnishing the return in a paper form;  (ii) by furnishing the return electronically under digital signature; (iii) by transmitting the data in the return electronically under electronic verification code; and (iv) by transmitting the data in the return electronically and thereafter submitting the verification of the return in Return Form ITR-V.