ITR Filing 2025: On Friday, May 30, the Income Tax Department shared some important news for taxpayers. They said that the Excel utility tools for ITR-1 and ITR-4 are now live and ready to use for the Assessment Year 2025–26. These tools help people file their tax returns more easily by letting them fill in the details offline. This update came on the official social media page of the department where they reminded everyone that these Excel utilities are available now.
Just a few days earlier, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) also announced something big. They gave taxpayers more time to file their ITRs. People who don’t need to get their accounts audited have until September 15, 2025, instead of the usual July 31 deadline.
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The reason for this extra time is that the tax forms were changed recently, and the whole system needed updates. Also, the tax department wants to make sure that things like TDS credit show up properly in the system for everyone.
Steps to Download ITR-1 and ITR-4 Excel Utility
Visit the official website of the Income Tax Department at www.incometax.gov.in/iec/foportal/. On the homepage, select Downloads and then 2025-26 as Assessment Year
Select from ITR-1 and ITR-4 options available to download utilities
Excel Utility Tools and New Form Changes
The new Excel tools are actually offline files that taxpayers can use on their computers without the internet. After they fill out all the details, they can check if everything is correct and then make a special file called a JSON. That file can be uploaded on the official income tax e-filing website to finish the return process.
The ITR-1 form is meant for people who are living in India and earn up to ₹50 lakh from a salary, one house, and interest income. It also includes farmers who earn a small income from agriculture, up to ₹5,000.
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ITR-4 is for people who run small businesses or work in professions, and whose total income is also not more than ₹50 lakh. It is used by individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs), and small companies except LLPs. They use this form if they are under a simple tax scheme called presumptive taxation.
One big change in these forms is that now people can report their long-term capital gains (LTCG) from stocks or mutual funds up to ₹1.25 lakh directly in ITR-1 and ITR-4. Before, they had to use the ITR-2 form for that. This is helpful because these gains are tax-free up to that amount, so it saves small investors from having to deal with more complicated forms.
