Common ITR form for all: What's new in the proposed income tax return form?

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has recently proposed a common income tax return form that aims to replace six of the seven existing ITR forms — ITR 1 to ITR 6.

The common ITR form will be an online questionnaire-based form. The proposed form has certain schedules such as basic information (PAN, name, address), computation of total income, computation of total taxes, details of bank accounts, and schedule of tax payments (taxes deducted at source, self-assessment tax, etc.) which are applicable to all.


The questionnaire in the proposed common ITR form will have 'Yes' or 'No' questions and based on the answers, it will ask the taxpayer to furnish information that is only relevant to him or her.

The proposed common ITR is aimed at eliminating this process of selecting the correct income tax return form applicable to a taxpayer.

Do note that these questions are designed in such a way that if the answer to a question is 'No', then the taxpayers do not have to answer further consequential questions linked to such question.

No. The taxpayer will have the option to file ITR 1 or ITR 4 (if it applies to him/her) instead of the common ITR form if they want to do so.

With a simpler flow, the proposed common ITR will make filing income tax easier for taxpayers, said, experts.