Income Tax Return (ITR) forms ITR-1 and ITR-4 can now be filed through the online mode with pre-filled data for the Assessment Year 2025-26 for taxpayers, the income tax department has said on its official channel on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Prefilled data in ITR forms means that financial data will be automatically picked up by the ITR on the basis of the taxpayer’s Permanent Account Number (PAN) from a variety of sources, such as Form 16, Form 16A, Form 26AS, AIS, TIS, and bank account details. This means one does not have to manually fill in all these details in the ITR while preparing to file the same.
“Since the data is auto-populated from the income tax department’s system, most of the data entry is already done, and the taxpayer only needs to verify it and file the return. As the details are obtained directly from the system, most of the information is generally accurate, but still one should cross-verify the same,” says Deepak Kumar Jain, founder and CEO, TaxManager.in, a tax advisory and e-filing portal platform.
“This helps taxpayers in avoiding manual feeding of data, which could be a big source of inadvertent mistakes. This reduces the time required for filing the ITR and makes it much convenient and easier, streamlines the ITR filing process and makes it faster, especially for those taxpayers who are not experts in this domain and helps them with timely compliance,” adds Ritika Nayyar, partner, Singhania & Co, a CA firm.
Who Is Eligible For Filing ITR 1 And ITR 4
ITR- 1 is for resident individuals having total income up to Rs 50 lakh and having Income from salaries, one house property, other sources (Interest etc.), long-term capital gains (LTCG) under section 112A up to Rs 1.25 lakh (but with no brought forward/ carry forward loss) and agricultural income up to Rs 5,000.
“ITR 4 is for taxpayers who in addition to these above incomes have the income which are entitled for benefit under presumptive tax schemes under sections 44AD (small businesses having turnover up to Rs 2 crore or Rs 3 crore with certain conditions), 44ADA (income from specified professions) or 44AE (for those in business of plying, hiring or leasing goods carriages). However, ITR 4 may only be used by resident individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs), and firms (other than LLP) having total income up to Rs 50 lakh,” says Nayyar.
What Should You Verify Before Submitting Pre-filled ITR Online
Before submitting a pre-filled ITR online, taxpayers should verify their personal details, such as name, PAN, income details from all the sources, details of tax deducted at source (TDS), and bank account details, which are normally pre-validated.
