The Income Tax Department’s draft Income‑tax Rules proposed a comprehensive renumbering of tax forms that would improve reporting ease and enhance compliance for taxpayers, professionals and institutions as the Income‑tax Act, 2025 is set to come into force on April 1.
The draft rules, released with new form templates, replace legacy form numbers that evolved over decades and will reduce ambiguity and duplication in filings for taxpayers, experts said.
It will better integrate reporting with real‑time data matching and analytics, but the change will require rapid adaptation and system updates by employers, tax practitioners, registrars and corporate systems.
Several commonly used audit and international tax forms have been consolidated or renumbered. Tax audit reports now filed as Forms 3CA, 3CB and 3CD would be consolidated under Form 26, while transfer‑pricing audit reporting would move from Form 3CEB to Form 48. Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) certification would shift from Form 29B to Form 66.
MAT is a 15 per cent tax on book profits (under Section 115JB) for companies whose normal tax liability is less than 15 per cent of their book profit.
To apply for Tax residency certificates, the taxpayers have to use Form 42 instead of Form 10FA to Form 42, and DTAA‑related disclosures will be done in Form 41 instead of erstwhile Form 10F.
Core withholding and reporting forms were also renumbered with the draft marking lower or nil TDS applications to Form 128 and the salary TDS certificate to Form 130.
It reassigned periodic TDS returns including the legacy 24Q (salaried), 26Q (residents) and 27Q (non-residents) to Form 138, Form 140 and Form 144 respectively. TCS returns have been moved from 27EQ to Form 143.
Reporting forms such as the annual tax statement commonly referred to as 26AS would be renumbered Form 168.
The Statement of Financial Transactions from 61A, would become Form 165, while foreign remittance declaration moving from 15CA to Form 145, and CA certificate for remittances shifting from 15CB to Form 146 are other major changes.
Experts said the changes would lead to simplified return filing, clearer valuation norms for income and perquisites, and increased standardisation of compliance framework.
