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It has been a constant endeavour of the Narendra Modi-led government to expand the tax base of India in order to sore up government revenue. In this effort, the government this year introduced few criteria for filing tax returns to catch certain tax evaders. Under these new criteria, even if you are not required to file Income Tax Return (ITR) based on the minimum annual income criteria set by the government, you may have to file ITR if you have done certain expenditures beyond a threshold limit in a particular financial year.

From this year onward three new criteria have been introduced under the seventh provision to Section 139(1) of Income Tax Act 1961, where even if your income is below the exempted limit, you will have to file ITR if you meets any one of the following criteria.

1) If you have paid an electricity bill of Rs 1 lakh or more during the year.

2) If you have deposited an amount exceeding Rs 1 crore or more in one or more current account maintained with a bank or a co-operative bank.

3) In case you have incurred an expenditure of Rs 2 lakh or more for travel to a foreign country for self or any other person.

With the introduction of the above provision, even if you had zero income in FY 2019-20 but meet any of the above mentioned criteria, you are liable to file ITR. Apart from this, the capital gain exemption will no longer be considered while calculating the minimum tax-exempted income.

"Earlier any person who claimed the benefit of exemption from capital gains tax was not required to file ITR provided his or her total income did not exceed the threshold limit after claiming capital gains exemption under Section 54 the Income-tax act. But now after the amendment to the Finance Act in 2019, individuals are required to calculate the threshold limit or basic exemption limit before taking into account the exemptions available under Section 54, 54 EC, 54F etc of the IT Act," said Balwant Jain, chief editor of Apnapaisa.com.

So, now if your income before claiming exemption under Section 54 to 54GB is more than the basic exempted limit, you are required to file ITR this year.

To understand this let us take an example. A person had a gross total income of Rs 2.30 lakh and capital gains of Rs 1.5 lakh on the sale of house property, which he invested in capital gains bonds under Section 54 EC to claim exemption. The person will still be liable to file ITR as his gross total income will be calculated as Rs 3.80 lakh (Rs 2.30 lakh plus Rs 1.50 lakh. Earlier he was not required to file returns, as his gross total income was considered only Rs 2.30 lakh, which is below the exempted limit of Rs 2.5 lakh.