Page 52 - Banking Finance December 2022

FEATURES

Why has FinMin proposed

common income tax return?

n a bid to make tax return filing simpler and less time- arrangement, logical flow, and increased scope of pre-filling.
I ITR form by merging all the existing returns of income data available with the department vis-a-vis the data to be
consuming, finance ministry has proposed a common
It will also facilitate the proper reconciliation of third-party
reported in the ITR to reduce the compliance burden on the
except ITR 7.
taxpayers," the notification stated.
However, the current ITR 1 and ITR 4 will continue,
according to the ministry notification. With this, the Under the existing system, there are seven kinds of Income
taxpayers will have an option to either file the return in the Tax Returns forms - ITR-1 to ITR-7. taxpayers can choose
existing (ITR1 or ITR4) or the proposed common ITR, at their from one of the seven depending on their source of income.
convenience. "The new common ITR form would be available in parallel
to old forms in ITR-1 and ITR-4 and the assesse belonging
Under the common ITR, all the taxpayers will have to give to ITR-1 and ITR-4 categories could choose to file old forms
certain basic information and details of bank accounts. or the new, depending on convenience. Taxpayers filing
Schedules for computation of total income, computation of return of income in Forms ITR-2, ITR-3, ITR-5 and ITR-6
tax, and a schedule for the tax payments will be applicable would not have an option to file the old forms, once the new
for all. common form and related utility are notified," according to
the Sandeep Jhunjhunwala, Partner, Nangia Andersen LLP.
The tax department says that new proposed ITR has been
designed in a much user-friendly way. As per Jhunjhunwala, the proposed draft of the new ITR form
is designed to facilitate suitable reconciliation of third-party
"The taxpayers will not be required to see the schedules that data available with the Income-tax Department vis-à-vis
do not apply to them. It intends the smart design of data to be reported in ITR, to reduce compliance burden
schedules in a user-friendly manner with a better on taxpayers. (Source: The Indian Express)

Direct tax collection up 31% to Rs. 10.54 lakh crore
The provisional figures of direct tax collections up to 10 November 2022 stood at Rs 10.54 lakh crore which is 30.69%
higher than the gross collections for the corresponding period of last year.
Direct tax collection, net of refunds, stood at Rs 8.71 lakh crore which is 25.71% higher than the net collections for
the corresponding period of last year. This collection is 61.31% of the total Budget Estimates of Direct Taxes for F.Y.
2022-23.
In terms of gross revenue collections, the growth rate for Corporate Income Tax (CIT) is 22.03% while that for Per-
sonal Income Tax (PIT) [including securities transaction tax (STT)] is 40.64%. After adjustment of refunds, the net
growth in CIT collections is 24.51% and that in PIT collections is 28.06% (PIT only) 27% (PIT including STT).

Refunds amounting to Rs 1.83 lakh crore have been issued during 1st April 2022 to 10th November 2022, which are
61.07% higher than refunds issued during the same period in the preceding year.

52 | 2022 | DECEMBER | BANKING FINANCE