Business Line

New Delhi, Jun 6: Tax experts do not share the views of the Finance Ministry that new income tax form is simpler than Saral form and said it would increase the work of the common tax assessee.

The new form, called '2F' is definitely not simpler than Saral, as the tax assessee is to give each and every detail of expenses incurred by him, said direct tax expert with Deloitte Haskins and Sells Sameer Gogia.

The new tax form has Schedule 5, where assesses are supposed to file their cash flow statement- opening cash and bank balance, various receipts and outgoings during the assessment year.

The schedule is optional for this assessment year, but would be made mandatory from the next year.

Schedule 5 will require the assessee to file their statement of affairs (which is akin to the balance sheet of corporates), Gogia said. It will make returns filing a cumbersome exercise, he added.

Noted income tax consultant Subhash Lakhotia said the new form would frighten the assessees. The new form is definitely not simpler than Saral, he said.

"One fails to understand how this form is going to be easy to fill up, easy to understand with little or no help (from tax experts) as is being said by tax authorities," he said.

Though he defended the logic behind filing of cash flow statement by assessees, he said the tax authorities before coming out with the new form should have adequately explained the rationale. "Assessees would be frightened by the new form," he said.