The income-tax return filing season for FY26 or AY27 is drawing to a close with barely couple of weeks left for the July 31 deadline. In recent years, for individual assessees without business income, the tax filing process had become incredibly simple or little more complex, depending on which form the returns are filed.Consider this: Assessee A, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, wrapped up filing his tax returns in 27 minutes in April. Three years ago, the same exercise took him three hours and a call to his brother-in-law, who is a chartered accountant. His income has not changed — a salary, some mutual fund gains and a home loan. The form (ITR-1) has!His experience reflects a quiet shift. India’s two most-used income-tax forms, ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-2, have been redrafted, re-scoped and re-populated across three assessment years (AY24-26). The straightforward filer moves faster and lighter. The complex filer faces sharper questions.What got easierITR-1 accounts for over half of the returns filed in the country — at 5.25 crore in FY25 on a base of nine crore returns. It is the simplest of the forms that is applicable when a taxpayer’s income source is limited to salary/ pension, one house property, interest/dividend income from securities and other investments. Four moves by the income-tax department have further simplified the form.The taxman relaxed the ITR-1 eligibility gate for AY26. Salaried filers, with long-term capital gains up to ₹1.25 lakh on listed equity — the annual Section 112A exemption, can now file ITR-1, provided there are no brought-forward or carry-forward capital losses. Any capital gain, however small, previously forced the taxpayer into the heavier ITR-2. For FY26 filings, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has taken a further step and allowed a taxpayer with income from up to two house properties to file ITR-1, against the earlier limit of one. These rule changes have moved a large segment of retail investors onto the simpler form.Second, pre-fill has grown teeth. Form 26AS, the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and the Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) now populate salary, TDS, savings-account interest, dividends and brokerage-reported capital gains. The taxpayer’s job has shrunk to review and correct. Even so, assessees must reconcile the information flowing from Form 26AS and the AIS against their own records before filing. Every rupee reported in the AIS finds its way into Section 143(1) intimation if the return misses it. Intimations now arrive within weeks of e-verification. A mismatch, however innocent, triggers an automated demand.Third, the portal added the ‘discard return’ facility for AY24 onwards. A filer who submits and then spots an error can file a fresh one before verification, sidestepping the revised-return route. Refund cycles, too, have compressed: For AY26, the average time from e-verification to refund credit fell to under three weeks for ITR-1 filers, according to department disclosures.Fourth, for AY27, the department has staggered the due dates between July 31 (salaried/ITR-1 and ITR-2 filers) and August 31 (ITR-3/ITR-4 filers — business/professional income, not liable for tax audit), giving different stakeholder groups room to prepare and file, avoiding a single-day rush.The Finance Act 2024 rewrote the capital gains framework — 12.5 per cent on long-term, 20 per cent on short-term listed equities — with effect from July 23, 2024. About one-third of FY25 fell before that date; the rest after.Schedule CG in ITR-2 for AY26 (relevant for FY25), therefore, split the year into two rate-regimes and taxpayers can recall this added complication for AY26.However, this split-reporting does not continue into AY27, making even the ITR-2 lighter in this aspect, relative to AY26.What got tougherIf ITR-1 has become simpler in the last three years, ITR-2 has grown in scope.Schedule FA (Foreign Assets) has expanded. ESOP grants from parent companies listed abroad, foreign bank accounts and offshore mutual funds — all trigger disclosure in ITR-2. The Black Money Act, 2015, sits behind the Schedule and the penal consequences of non-compliance are severe: A flat 30 per cent tax on undisclosed foreign income and assets, a penalty of ₹10 lakh for each year of default on disclosure, and prosecution with imprisonment ranging from six months to seven years for wilful default. India’s workforce, employed by foreign companies/MNCs, earning ESOPs and other individuals invested in foreign-listed shares face this issue every year.Schedule VDA (Virtual Digital Assets) is now three years old and has quietly become heavier. The taxpayer must disclose every crypto transaction line by line and the gains are taxable at 30 per cent. Losses under other heads of income are not eligible to be offset against VDA gains, nor are VDA losses eligible to be offset against income under other heads. VDA losses also cannot be carried forward to subsequent years.Schedule AL — Assets and Liabilities (requires an assessee to declare assets and liabilities) — kicks in above ₹50 lakh of income; the threshold has not been changed since 2018. Career growth and salary inflation have likely pushed many senior professionals into this reporting bracket for the first time.Further for AY27, the CBDT removed Section 89A-reporting from ITR-1: A filer with income from an overseas retirement benefit account must now use ITR-2.Summing upThe direction of change reflects a clear intent to reduce the effort involved in filing for the vast majority of taxpayers. Pre-fill from Form 26AS and the AIS cuts data entry time; the discard-return facility offers filers a second chance; refunds arrive faster. Additional reporting appears only where the underlying tax policy demands it — foreign assets, multi-property income, dabbling in crypto. For the salaried employee with a clean Form 16, the changes of recent years have made the filing exercise quite easy and the portal is simplified for them. For returns with more moving parts — the ITR-2, for instance — engaging a professional, whose expertise matches the added complexity, remains the prudent choice and helps the assessee complete the process with confidence. Readers can also refer to our earlier article, which can help decide whether it would make sense to seek professional advice in your case.The author is a Partner at Venkatesh and Co, chartered accountants. With inputs from Hrishikesh D and Manikarnika BPublished on July 18, 2026