The Income Tax Department has started rolling out online filing and Excel utilities for ITR-1, and ITR-4 for AY 2026-27 in a phased manner on the e-filing portal. With the utilities now live, taxpayers can start filing income tax returns for FY 2025-26.
This year’s tax filing season may seem routine, but several changes in ITR forms and reporting rules mean taxpayers will need to pay closer attention while filing returns. Here’s what changed this year:
Reporting unrealised rent
This is specifically meant for landlord collecting rent.
For AY 2026-27, a new field is added to ITR 1 and ITR 4 – “The amount of rent which cannot be realized”. Previously, the field for unrealised rent was not there.
Reporting income from two properties becomes easier
A major relief this year is for taxpayers who own two house properties.
These taxpayers can report income from up to two residential properties in the same forms. This allows many salaried individuals with two homes to continue using simpler ITR forms instead of switching to more complicated ones.
Old capital gain fields removed
For AY 2025–26, taxpayers were required to report capital gains separately for transactions made before and after July 23, 2024, following the tax changes announced in the Budget.
Different tax rates applied to short-term and long-term gains during different periods. This is created a lot of confusion.
Since the old capital gains tax rates for listed equity shares — 15% for short-term capital gains (STCG) and 10% for long-term capital gains (LTCG) — no longer apply in FY 2025-26, ClearTax pointed out
And hence, they have been removed from all the relevant ITR forms
Reporting bank balance
For assessment year 2026-27, it has become mandatory for taxpayers to disclose their investment and bank balance details under ITR-4.
Section 89A relief
Under Section 89A, Indian residents with foreign retirement accounts can claim relief from double taxation.
Now, the option to claim this relief has been removed from ITR-1 and ITR-4 forms. As a result, taxpayers can claim this benefit only through ITR-2 and ITR-3, making ITR-1 and ITR-4 simpler, ClearTax explains
More detail required for claiming deductions for donation
Section 80G – Donations
- Transaction Reference number
- IFSC code of bank
Section 80G – Donations to Political Parties
New details required are as under:
- Name of the political party
- PAN of the political party
ITR filing by representative assessee
All ITR forms now include a new field to show whether the income tax return is being filed by a representative assessee.