Centre may come out with simplified ITR forms by month-end

NEW DELHI: The finance ministry is likely to come out with simplified Income Tax Return (ITR) forms by the end of this month which may exclude disclosure of dormant bank accounts as also those which do not have a minimum specified balance.

The simplified form, which is being brought after the earlier version was opposed by industry and MPs for cumbersome disclosure norms, is also likely to relax the requirement of reporting details of every foreign travel undertaken. “An internal meeting of the finance ministry officials on the issue will take place soon after Parliament session ends. We are looking at whether dormant bank accounts need to be disclosed as most of the time they have very little balance,” a top official said. The final decision on simplification of the ITR forms (ITR-1 and ITR-2) would be taken by finance minister Arun Jaitley before the end of the month, the official said.

The salaried individuals and those persons who do not have TOP OFFICIAL

business/professional income are required to file income tax returns in either ITR-1 or ITR-2 by July 31. Following the controversy over the new ITR forms which sought details of bank accounts and foreign visits, the revenue department announced putting them on hold. Jaitley promised to come out with “extremely simplified” forms.

The tax department also held consultations with industry chambers seeking their views for simplification. According to the official, “it is being considered whether a minimum balance could be specified for the purpose of disclosure of details of bank accounts in the return form.” NEW DELHI: Amid a rising number of frauds and loan defaults in banking system, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has called a meeting of finance ministry officials on Thursday to firm up measures to tackle such menaces.

The PMO in a meeting with top finance ministry officials on May 14 will review steps to check loan frauds, an official source said.

The finance ministry has already collected a comprehensive data on wilful defaulters of public sector banks last month, sources said.

They further said instances of corporate frauds were on increase in the recent past, leading to a rise in bad loans.

As per RBI data, gross NPAs of PSU banks have gone up to `2,60,531 crore as on December, 2014. The top 30 defaulters are sitting on bad loans of `95,122 crore, which is more than onethird of the entire non-performing assets of public sector banks as on December 2014. In terms of percentage, it amounts to 36.5%.

The total number of NPA borrowers having `10 crore and above at the end of September 2014 stood at 2,897 with outstanding amount of `1,60,164 crore. PTI