Sheela is my neighbour and I have known her since college. Her husband, Rajnikant, is always travelling; so any time she is aggrieved about something, husband included, she comes charging down my walkway which is precisely what she was doing right now as I sat in the veranda sipping tulsi tea.

“ Bhai sahib ,” she said, as she sat on the chair I had offered her, “what is this? Doesn't the Government have anything better to do than keep changing these tax forms? I am going mad!”

I looked at the paper that Sheela was waving. It contained the news that new tax forms had been announced and also that individuals or Hindu undivided families who had an annual income of more than Rs 10 lakh had to file the returns online, including for financial year 2011-12. Online filing or e-filing had been an optional previously, not mandatory.

Another item caught my attention — individuals who had assets located outside India, including financial interests or signing authority in overseas bank accounts, had to file their returns using ITR 2 and not ITR 1. . A new Schedule FA had been inserted in ITR 2 to capture this data. As if this was not enough, a new Schedule 80G had also been inserted requiring full details of all charitable donations made.

Assets outside India

“Do you have bank accounts or property outside India?” I asked Sheela.

“Yes, bhai sahib .” “. There is a bank account in UK that I recently opened under the liberalised scheme of the Reserve Bank of India, wherein I could remit upto $200,000 every year. I had plans to use the money for my son's higher education. There is also a small studio apartment in New York that one of my uncles had gifted to me when I was studying there. ”

As I flipped through Form ITR 2, I started to develop a furrow in my brows . First of all, while the online filing has been made mandatory, the e-version of the form is yet to be uploaded on the income-tax Web site. This means, even if you want to e-file your returns now, you have to wait till they are uploaded.

Secondly, while asking for details of overseas assets and bank accounts (under Schedule FA), it requires you to provide the rupee value without any guidance on what conversion basis is to be used. Moreover, taking Sheela's case, how would she know the investment value of the studio apartment that had been gifted to her long ago? The terms “any asset” and “located outside India” itself left me puzzled and apprehensive.

My nephew, who is studying abroad, had borrowed my new iPad and taken it away, promising to give it back when he returned after a year. Will my beloved iPad become an “asset located outside India” requiring me to report its, location, address, value, etc.? The more I thought, the more questions came to mind — for example, if someone sold one asset and bought another during the year, would both have to be reported or only assets in possession at the end of the financial year.

I knew that eventually the Government would get around to providing answers to all these questions but at that moment, there was nothing I could do to comfort Sheela except pat her hand and offer her some ginger biscuits.

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