ITR Forms Changed for 2026: Every New Field, Decoded
- Aditi Rao
- 6 min read
You opened the e-filing utility expecting last year’s form with new dates. Instead there is a field asking for a secondary address, the exempt-income line you used last year has vanished, and the capital gains schedule looks rearranged. You are not imagining it. The AY 2026-27 forms carry a long list of structural changes, and the search data says thousands of filers are stopping at the same new boxes every day this week.
Here is each change, why it exists, and what actually goes in it.
All the changes in one place
| What changed | Where you’ll meet it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Secondary mobile, email, address | Personal information | Add an alternate contact you actually check |
| “Other Exempt Income” removed; “Receipts not in the nature of income” added | Schedule EI | Reclassify: gifts from relatives, non-taxable capital receipts |
| Small LTCG gets its own rows in ITR-1 | Capital gains section | Report 112A gains up to ₹1.25 lakh without leaving ITR-1 |
| Old 15%/10% capital-gains rate fields removed | CG schedules | Nothing — every FY 2025-26 sale uses the new rates |
| Buyback loss row | Capital gains + other sources | Report buyback proceeds as dividend, cost as capital loss |
| Unrealised rent field | House property | Enter rent you could not collect, separately |
| Deductions as dropdowns | Chapter VI-A section | Know your exact section and clause before you start |
| Representative-assessee flag | All forms | Skip unless you file for someone else |
Now the ones that are actually stopping people, in order of confusion generated.
The secondary address nobody was expecting
The personal-information section now asks for a secondary mobile number, email, and address alongside your primary ones. There is no trick here: the department wants a fallback channel so a changed number or a dead inbox does not sever communication mid-assessment.
Enter any alternate you genuinely check: a family member’s number, a personal email if your primary is a work address you might lose. The mistake to avoid is inventing filler; every notice and refund update flows through these channels, and an unreachable taxpayer is how small mismatches quietly become big demands.
Your exempt-income line is gone, on purpose
The old Schedule EI catch-all called “Other Exempt Income” has been removed. In its place sits a new option: “Receipts not in the nature of income.” The distinction sounds academic and is anything but.
Some money you receive is income that the law exempts: agricultural income, certain allowances. Other money was never income at all: a wedding gift from your parents, proceeds from selling rural agricultural land that is not a capital asset, a loan a friend repaid to you. Last year both kinds got shovelled into one vague field. This year the updated schema separates them, because the department increasingly cross-checks your return against your bank credits.
What this means practically: large non-salary credits in your account now have a proper home in the return — a gift from family, the proceeds of rural agricultural land, a loan someone returned to you. Use it. A credit that appears in your AIS with no corresponding entry anywhere in your return is exactly the pattern that generates a query letter.
Small equity gains now live inside ITR-1
If your only capital gain is long-term, from listed equity or equity mutual funds, and totals ₹1.25 lakh or less, ITR-1 now has rows for it. You no longer graduate to ITR-2 for a modest mutual fund redemption. We covered the eligibility line in detail in the form-choice guide; the short version is that the carve-out applies only to long-term 112A gains with no losses to carry forward. One short-term sale, and ITR-2 it is.
The new rows themselves ask for the usual 112A inputs, so keep your fund statement handy for cost and sale values.
The old capital-gains rate fields disappeared
Filers who remember last year’s schedule will notice the split-period reporting is gone. That split existed because rates changed mid-2024, forcing gains to be reported against two rate regimes. FY 2025-26 falls entirely under the new rates, so the old 15% short-term and 10% long-term fields have simply been deleted. If you are looking for them, stop; there is nothing to enter.
Buyback money is now a dividend, and the loss is yours to claim
Share buybacks changed character: proceeds are taxed as dividend income in your hands, reported under income from other sources. The new twist in this year’s forms is a matching row on the capital gains side, letting you claim the cost of those shares as a capital loss, provided the corresponding dividend is disclosed. If a company bought back your shares this year, you have two entries to make, not one, and skipping the other-sources entry forfeits the loss.
A separate row for rent you never received
Landlords get one honest improvement: a dedicated field for “the amount of rent which cannot be realised”. Tenant vanished mid-year? That uncollected rent previously muddied the annual-value arithmetic; now it is disclosed distinctly, which keeps your house-property income accurate without creative accounting.
Deductions are dropdowns now
Free-text deduction claims are over. The utility requires you to pick the exact section and clause from a menu: not “80C” scribbled somewhere, but the specific sub-section your claim belongs to. This is tidier and less forgiving in equal measure; “I’ll figure out which section later” no longer survives contact with the form. Pull out last year’s return and your proof documents, and note the precise sections before you begin.
The representative-assessee flag, briefly
Every form now asks whether the return is being filed by a representative assessee, someone filing on behalf of the taxpayer. For the overwhelming majority of salaried filers the answer is no, and you move on. It matters for returns filed for minors, non-residents, or the deceased; if that is you, the form collects the representative’s name and contact.
Why the forms got stricter this year
The through-line in every change is the same: the department is matching your return against data it already holds — AIS, bank reporting, broker statements, dividend records — and the forms are being reshaped so every rupee it sees has a labelled destination in your return. Vague fields hid mismatches; specific fields surface them at filing time, when you can still fix them, instead of six months later as a notice.
That reading also tells you how to file this year: reconcile first, then fill.
Ten minutes of prep that makes the new form boring
Before you open the utility:
- Open your AIS and Form 26AS, and note every credit and TDS entry you will need to explain.
- Decide your form using the eligibility checklist; the new ITR-1 rows change the answer for small equity gains.
- Pull fund and broker statements with holding periods, plus buyback records if any.
- List your deductions with exact sections, from last year’s return.
- Have a second contact channel ready for the new fields.
Then file well before the 31 July deadline, e-verify the same evening, and let the refund clock start while everyone else is still searching for what the new boxes mean.