Income Tax Relief: Streamlined Filing for ITR-1 and ITR-4 Users with Pre-filled Data

For the Assessment Year 2025-26, the Income Tax Department has made available Excel utilities for ITR-1 and ITR-4, enabling taxpayers to submit their income tax returns. The Income Tax Department had posted relevant information on their social media page. With these utilities, taxpayers can commence filing their Income Tax Return (ITR) for the income earned during the 2024-25 financial year. We would like to inform you that ITR filing opened on May 30 for the fiscal year 2024-25 and assessment year 2025-26. Who are the taxpayers needing to file ITR-1 and ITR-4? Towards the end of May last month, the CBDT had increased the last date for filing income tax returns with ITR-1 and ITR-4 from July 31 to September 15. Individuals, HUFs and entities with annual income not exceeding Rs 50 lakh and not required to get their accounts audited, fill ITR-1 and ITR-4 forms. Individuals who hold listed shares can declare long term capital gains up to Rs 1.25 lakh and file ITR-1 and ITR-4. Before, they were required to fill ITR-2 as well.ITR-U form was declared by IT departmentTo bring to your attention, the Income Tax Department has recently published the ITR-U form which enables taxpayers to file updated returns within four years from the end of an assessment year. The Finance Act of 2025 regressed the timeframe for filing an updated return ITR-U form to 48 months from 24 months. This is what has been done with the intention of adhering to the previous regulation.ITR-U form extra tax payment breakdownAs per the ITR-U guidelines issued by the Income Tax Department, if an ITR-U is submitted within 12 months of the end of the assessment year, there is a 25 percent surcharge, and an additional 50 percent will be added if it is submitted within 24 months. Also, for ITR-U submissions made 36 months after and up to 48 months, the taxpayer will incur a surcharge of 60 and 70 percent respectively. Approximately 90 lakh returns of this nature have been filed over the last three years. In this manner, taxpayers have been fiscally bolstered by 8500 crores.