The income tax (I-T) department wants to know more about your income, as it finds it difficult to gloss over ones earning details in the new tax forms.

On Tuesday, among the tax payers queuing up to submit I-T returns, the over-riding comment was, therefore, to keep themselves better prepared next year with the full details of their incomes. For this year, many assesses are hoping that the department will stick to its promise of accepting the returns at face value, announced by the finance ministry last week.

July 31 was the last date to fill in the tax returns for individuals and non-corporate assesses. The I-T department said about 1.46 crore assesses should be filing returns this year, an increase of about 16% over last years figures. Tax payers say it was a tough call to shift from the one-page Saral, the basic tax return form, to ITRs, introduced this year. This is especially, so for, the ITR-4 form, the form meant for individuals and hindu undivided family (HUF), with income from proprietary business or self-employed professionals.

While ITR-1, which is meant for individuals with incomes only from salaries, pension and interests, is the simplest of all, the six-page ITR- 2 needs details of all the shares and mutual funds one has invested in, along with sources of rental incomes. This can be tricky when a house is not self-occupied and has not been put out on rent, as one will have to work out a notional value of rent for the property.

The department has said the detailed forms are actually quite simple and computer-friendly, which made it easy for the department to mine the information later. The 20-page form requires assesses to fill in their profit and loss and balance sheet statements. For many self-employed individuals, it means starting from scratch, as they have to prepare a balance sheet for filling the form.

This is not all. Since assesses who have spent more than Rs 2 lakh on their credit card have to put in details of transaction carried out in the last fiscal, those who have used a corporate account credit card, are worried about visits from the tax men.

Vimal Jain (name changed on request), a middle rung executive said, I have spent about Rs 7 lakh on my corporate account credit card, which is much above my income for entertaining for business purposes. There is a lack of clarity on this in the form and my CA said I will have to fill in all transactions on the card.