The new format of Income Tax Return (ITR) forms that was withdrawn by the government in wake of complaints over providing details of foreign trips, domestic bank account number, etc is being revised to make it simpler. A special team of officials from the CBDT is working on it in consultation with the Income Tax and Revenue Department officials. The officials said that the new and simplified ITR forms are expected to be notified soon after it is cleared by the Finance Ministry so that the tax payers can file their return soon.

As it stands now the new ITR forms including, ITR – 1 and ITR – 2 requires an assessee to furnish the name of the bank, account number, address, IFSC code, any joint account holder, number of bank accounts held by the individual “at any time” (opened / closed) during the previous year.

With regards to tax payer’s foreign tour, the ITR forms had also sought details of assessee’s passport number, place of issuance, countries visited, number of times such visits were made,  expenses incurred in case of an resident tax payer.