With the beginning of the new financial year on April 1, the government has released all Income Tax Return (ITR) forms for Assessment Year (AY) 2026-27.
This officially marks the start of the new tax filing season, and taxpayers can begin filing their returns from this month.
The Income Tax Department has already notified forms such as ITR-1 (Sahaj), ITR-2, ITR-4 (Sugam), and ITR-6. Soon, filing utilities will also be made available to help taxpayers submit their returns easily.
Usually, the offline utility is launched first, followed by the online utility. Since the forms have already been notified, these utilities are also expected to be introduced shortly.
According to a News18 report, an income tax practitioner, who chose to remain anonymous, said that ITR filing generally starts in April.
Last year, filing was delayed because of major changes in tax rules, including LTCG, STCG, and indexation.
However, this year, since the Income Tax Department has already released the forms, filing is expected to begin this month itself.
The expert also advised salaried individuals to wait for their Form 16 before filing the return for AY 2026-27.
Important Things Taxpayers Should Remember
It is important to understand that although the Income Tax Act, 2025 came into effect on April 1 and replaced the 1961 Act, the return being filed now is for income earned during the financial year 2025-26.
Therefore, the rules applicable for that year will still be followed under the Income Tax Act, 1961.
This means the new Income Tax Act, 2025 will apply only to income earned after April 1, 2026. For the current filing season, taxpayers will continue to see commonly used terms like “Previous Year”
and “Assessment Year”, which have been part of the tax system for many years. These terms will continue instead of the proposed new term “Tax Year.”
Another important point is that the ITR filing deadline for this year will remain July 31 for salaried individuals and other non-audit taxpayers.
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