New simplified I-T return forms to come soon: Jaitley

The income tax return form will be simplified with a new version to be issued soon, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday told parliament.

"Controversy erupted when I was abroad that a 10-page return form had become 13 pages," he told the Lok Sabha while replying to the debate on the Finance Bill 2015.

"I'm having the entire matter reviewed and very soon you will see a simplified procedure coming up," he said regarding the new forms.

The IT department had introduced the new forms asking details about an individual's foreign trips including passport number and place of issue, countries visited, number of times such sojourns were made and in case of a resident taxpayer, the expenses incurred from "own sources" in relation to such travel.

The purpose of asking these details was in order to tackle black money. Jaitley said a team of Income Tax and Revenue Department officials are working to simplify the forms.

--Indo-Asian News service

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