The new Form 26AS is the faceless hand-holding of the taxpayers to e-file their income tax returns quickly and correctly. From this Assessment Year, taxpayers will see an improved Form 26AS which would carry some additional details on taxpayers’ financial transactions as specified in the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFTs) in various categories.

It is stated that the information being received by the Income Tax Department from the filers of these specified SFTs is now being shown in Part E of Form 26AS to facilitate voluntary compliance, tax accountability and ease of e-filing of returns so that the same can be used by the taxpayer to file her or his income tax return (ITR) by calculating the correct tax liability in a feel-good environment. This would also bring in further transparency and accountability in the tax administration.

The earlier Form 26AS used to give information regarding tax deducted at source and tax collected at source relating to a PAN, besides certain additional information including details of other taxes paid, refunds and TDS defaults. But now, it will have SFTs to help the taxpayers recall all their major financial transactions so that they have a ready reckoner to enable them while filing the ITR.

It is further explained that the Department used to receive information like cash deposit/withdrawal from saving bank accounts, sale/purchase of immovable property, time deposits, credit card payments, purchase of shares, debentures, foreign currency, mutual funds, buy back of shares, cash payment for goods and services, etc. under Section 285BA of Income-tax Act, 1961 from “specified persons” like banks, mutual funds, institutions issuing bonds and registrars or sub-registrars etc., with regard to individuals having high-value financial transactions since the Financial Year 2016 onwards. Now, all such information under different SFTs will be shown in the new Form 26AS.

It is stated that the Form 26AS for any taxpayer, from now onwards, will display in part E of the Form, different fields such as, type of transaction, name of SFT filer, date of transaction, single/joint party transaction, number of parties, amount, mode of payment and remarks etc.

Furthermore, this would help the honest taxpayers with updated financial transactions while filing their returns, whereas it will desist those taxpayers who inadvertently conceal financial transactions in their returns. The new Form 26AS would also have information of transactions which used to be received up to Financial Year 2015-16 in the Annual Information Returns (AIR).

The Income Tax Department is all set to start an e-campaign on voluntary compliance of Income Tax for the convenience of taxpayers from Monday, the 20th of July, 2020. The 11 days campaign ending on 31st July, 2020 focuses on the assessees/taxpayers who are either non-filers or have discrepancies/deficiency in their returns for the FY 2018-19.

The objective of the e-campaign is to facilitate taxpayers to validate online their tax/financial transaction information available with the I-T Department, especially for the assessees for FY 2018-19 and promote voluntary compliance, so that they do not get into notice and scrutiny process etc.

This e-campaign is being run for the benefit of the taxpayers. Under this e-campaign the Income Tax Department will send email/sms to identified taxpayers to verify their financial transactions related information received by the I-T Department from various sources such as Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT), Tax Deduction at Source (TDS), Tax Collection at Source (TCS), Foreign Remittances (Form 15CC) etc. The Department, has also collected information related to GST, exports, imports and transactions in securities, derivatives, commodities, mutual funds, etc., under information triangulation set up and data analytics.

It is stated that data analysis has identified certain taxpayers with high value transactions who have not filed returns for AY 2019-20 (relevant to FY 2018-19). In addition to the non-filers, another set of return filers have also been identified wherein the high value transactions do not appear to be in line with their Income Tax Return.

Under the e-campaign, the taxpayers will be able to access details of their high value transaction related information on the designated portal. They will also be able to submit online response by selecting among any of these options: (i) Information is correct, (ii) Information is not fully correct, (iii) Information related to other person/year, (iv) Information is duplicate/included in other displayed information, and (v) Information is denied. There would be no need to visit any Income Tax office, as the response has to be submitted online.

It may be noted that the last date for filing as well as revising the Income Tax Return for Assessment Year 2019-20 (relevant to FY 2018-19) is 31st July 2020. Taxpayers are requested to avail the opportunity to participate in the e-campaign for their own ease and benefit.