In a key move for salaried taxpayers and investors, the Income Tax Department has activated online filing for ITR-2 forms with pre-filled data for Assessment Year 2025-26 — just weeks after pushing the return deadline to September 15.
Taxpayers can now submit their ITR-2 forms directly through the official e-filing portal, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) confirmed Thursday via X. This form caters to individuals and Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) who do not have business income but earn from salary, capital gains, foreign assets, or digital assets like crypto.
While ITR-2 is fully online, ITR-3 — meant for those with business or professional income — remains limited to offline Excel utilities. Pre-filled online functionality for ITR-3 is still pending.
The department attributed the overall delay in releasing updated ITR utilities to recent legislative changes under the Finance Act 2024, prompting the extension of the original July 31 deadline to mid-September.
Alongside the rollout, ITR-2 comes with six critical reporting updates:
First, individuals can now report capital losses from company share buybacks under Schedule CG — a significant update aligned with Section 68 of the Companies Act, 2013 — as long as related dividend income is disclosed separately.
Second, a new row mandates disclosure of dividend income from share buybacks under Section 2(22)(f), tightening tracking on shareholder proceeds.
Third, taxpayers selling land or buildings must now separately declare acquisition and improvement costs based on whether the transaction occurred before or after July 23, 2024 — a change that impacts indexation eligibility.
Fourth, the asset and liability disclosure threshold has been raised: those earning above ₹1 crore annually must now report all holdings, up from the previous ₹50 lakh benchmark.
Fifth, due to capital gains tax updates effective July 23, ITR-2 now includes separate columns for gains before and after the date, ensuring correct application of old and new rates.
Finally, the TDS schedule now includes a field for specifying the section code under which tax was deducted.