What is not so 'saral' or 'sahaj' about IT returns

The forms for simplified income tax returns are anything but Saral, Sahaj and Sugam: for many readers these would have a familiar ring particularly in the month of July.

No, they are not monsoon releases from the Karan Johar or Ekta Kapoor production house but names of forms used for filing income tax returns (ITRs).

Given the tryst in July to file ITRs, I was at the office of my chartered accountant (CA) when I heard him chanting these names looking rather forlorn.

Cheer up, I said to him, your life is much simpler these days. As is synonymous from these names and what one reads in the press, your life has been made "Saral" has it not?

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Well, Saral was jettisoned long back, since it turned out to be not-so-Saral he informs me. Indeed some of the forms under the new Sahaj and Sugam brand of ITRs are straightforward, just a few pages and simple to complete.

But for this you must ideally have income stream purely from salary, bank interest and so on in which tax is deducted at source, otherwise they can also be time-consuming, he added.

My mind wandered back to the forms we had used 20 years or so and seem to recollect that even in those complicated old days the ITR used to be only a few pages.

Of course one had to submit photocopies of the proof of various investments, original TDS certificates and so on.

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Oh, now there is no need to provide any of that with the ITR, he said, but you still need to keep them for a few years in case the department raises a query.

The CA's life is still simpler from that era, is it not I ask him? Not really he retorts. Let us look at your return and you will appreciate why our life is not as "Sugam" as it sounds. From the Sugam lot he picks up a thick form titled ITR IV.

Running into 24 pages this is to be used by a professional or those with business income. With its review started my education as to why CAs are vital to our financial health.

For an individual professional, is there not a simpler form to use? No, however, probably much of it is either inapplicable or can be left blank in such a case, he says. As I review ITR IV, a section titled "Income from Other sources" catches my eye.

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It has only two rows titled (a) from sources other than owning race horses and (b) from owning race horses. What percentage of professionals come in category (b) and why is the classification of "other income" based on owning race horses or not, I ask.

The normally effusive CA mumbles that it must be for consistency, having been possibly carried from the forms of yesteryear. The IT department's love for race horses appears again in some more sections of the form.

Taking into account also other entries in the form like "winning from lottery" and so on, we must be one heck of a nation of gambling professionals I surmise.

Deductions under various nuanced categories, like Industrial Undertakings in Meghalaya, 10A entities and so on take up many more pages.

After what seems an interminable period we reach the last page of ITR IV, not having had to fill even half the pages!

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Can we not have a shorter, simpler form for professionals and at least reduce wastage in printing all these sheets? Others higher in the alpha numeric chain, that is ITR 6&7, not currently "S" branded, are more complex and we can review them if you like, he says, but by now I have no horsepower left. Maybe we could brand them Sakth, I volunteer.

Do you now see that there is significant work for us CAs in all this, he asks? Unlike the past when it had to be in physical form and one had to stand in a queue to submit it you can now upload it electronically, I try a last retort.

Yes, he says, no physical queues but in the electronic upload queue it is possible to run into a few server crashes after which a signed copy also has to be posted.

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In certain Western countries on many government forms one finds the time expected to complete printed on it.

An extremely user-friendly practice that maybe our government could consider incorporating into ITRs and other forms.

However, he also says that in many areas like online tracking of TDS credits, automation of refunds and so on, major strides have been made by the department and continues.

Till the day ITRs are called "Samapth or Shunya" you need our services is his parting shot as I gallop out of his office.

The author is a Bangalore-based independent corporate advisor.