The Income Tax Department will notify new ITR forms and related rules under the streamlined Income Tax Act, 2025, by January, according to Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Ravi Agrawal. These updated regulations will come into effect from April 1, 2026, marking the transition from the nearly six-decade old Income Tax Act of 1961, as per a PTI report.

Agrawal said the Income Tax Department’s focus is on keeping the new return forms simple and easy to comply with, so taxpayers can adapt without any difficulty under the revised Tax Act.

“We are in the process of designing the new forms and rules, and our aim is to notify them by January so that taxpayers have adequate time to adjust their systems and processes,” he told reporters after inaugurating the Taxpayers' Lounge at the India International Trade Fair (IITF), New Delhi.

Abhishek Mundada, Partner, Dhruva Advisors says, "The Rules, Forms and the IT systems form key pillars for effective implementation and undertaking due compliances under the income-tax provisions by every taxpayer. However, the current framework of the Rules is largely drafted in traditional legal language leading to understanding and interpretation issues. Just as the new Income-tax Act 2025 has simplified the provisions by reduction of the word counts, introduction of Tables, formulas, it is desirable that the proposed Rules provides suitable examples/ illustrations in the Rules while providing for simplified language and removing redundant rules. This would be more relevant for say Valuation Rules to appropriately apply the valuation mechanism under different situations/ circumstances rather than getting into interpretation of the text. Further, the structure of TDS provisions has been revamped under the new Income-tax Act 2025 based on different categories eg payments to residents, non-residents, no TDS situations etc. It would be expected that the new forms would align with this framework for ease in complying with the TDS provisions."...