a week may be a long time in politics but when it comes to filing tax returns some people may find that even four weeks arent enough as the deadline for filing tax returns approaches thousands of indians who have worked abroad will be scrambling to gather the information required to be filled in the new tax forms this years budget had proposed that individuals who have assets abroad must file their tax return and mention details of their foreign assets in the forms this new requirement is likely to become a big nuisance even if you have 10 in a bank account abroad it has to be reported in the tax form says amarpal s chadha tax partner ernst young this is just one of the several changes in the tax filing rules this year some of these are minor and may not make a material difference but most of them are significant and will broaden as well as deepen the information that an individual discloses in the tax returns for the honest taxpayer who pays his taxes and has nothing to hide these changes should not matter however he will have to be a lot more disciplined in keeping records of financial transactions the new forms are a wakeup call for taxpayers who have not been entirely honest in paying their taxes nearly 5 of the respondents in an online survey conducted by et wealth last week said that they have underreported their income quite a few times another 10 said they have done so just once or twice we believe there is also a large community of innocent offenders who dont even know that they are falling foul of the tax laws these taxpayers must realise that big brother is watching earlier this year the it department announced that nearly 275 lakh taxpayers made cash deposits of over rs 10 lakh in their bank accounts in 200910 and 201011 more than 6 lakh people purchased or sold property worth over rs 30 lakh over 15 lakh cardholders made payments of over rs 2 lakh in a year on their credit cards all this information flows to the it department from banks credit card issuers property registration authorities mutual funds and brokers the department has put about 222 crore transactions under the scanner to ensure that your tax returns are flawless and you dont end up on the wrong side of the law et wealth reached out to experts to understand the changes in this years tax forms here is what they had to say efiling for income over rs 10 lakh any individual or hindu undivided family huf with an annual income of rs 10 lakh and above will now have to compulsorily efile the income tax return till now only corporates were required to efile their returns whereas individuals and hufs were free to file manual returns the new rule might seem like a big change but it actually affects a very thin creamy layer