Government has recently changed Form 16 and Form 24 Q to bring more disclosures.  In order to enable pre-filling of return of income of salaried taxpayers, the Government has amended Form No.16 (certificate for tax deduction) and Form No. 24Q (quarterly statement of tax deducted) vide notification dated 12th April, 2019, to include more detailed information in these forms.

These forms, inter alia, provide for the following additional information:

(i)  Clause wise details of various allowances exempt under section 10 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (“the Act”);

(ii)  Amount of standard deduction;

(iii) Section wise details of deduction under Chapter VIA of the Act;

(iv)  Details of rebate under section 87A of the Act;

(v)  PAN of the lender, if the interest on housing loan is claimed under section 24(b) of the Act on loan taken from a person other than a Financial Institution or the employer.

The purpose of amendment in these forms was to reduce compliance burden of employers (since Form No 16 can now be downloaded online and there is common format of reporting), to enable pre-filling of income tax return forms (since the information sought in income tax return forms has now been aligned with the information in these forms) and to enable e-verification of various details in income tax returns.

Considering the practical difficulties of taxpayers, the due date for issue of Form No. 16 has already been extended from 15th June, 2019 to 10th July, 2019.

Representations have been received from certain quarters but, no specific proposal to extend the last date for filing IT returns for salaried class and others is under consideration at present.

This was stated by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

Form 16 disclosure expansion enables pre-filling and extended issuance deadline, but the tax return filing date remains unchanged. Form No.16 and Form No.24Q were amended to add clause wise allowance disclosures, standard deduction reporting, section wise Chapter VIA deduction details, rebate details, and lender PAN for certain housing loan interest claims to enable pre filling of returns, reduce employer compliance burden and permit e verification; issuance deadline for Form No.16 was extended, while no extension of the income tax return filing deadline is under consideration.