Good news for taxpayers, especially those who were either preparing to file their income tax return in a hurry or were unable to do so because of some unavoidable reasons. For, the due date for filing the income tax return, ie, July 31, was just round the corner and missing it would have invited some penalty. However, such taxpayers can now heave a sigh of relief as the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has finally extended the due date for filing of ITR from July 31 to August 31, 2019.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the CBDT said, “The due date for filing of Income Tax Returns for Assessment Year 2019-20 is 31.07.2019 for certain categories of taxpayers. Upon consideration of the matter, the Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT) extends the ‘due date’ for filing of Income Tax Returns from 31st July 2019 to 31st August 2019 in respect of the said categories of taxpayers.”

The extended deadline will be applicable to individuals, including salaried taxpayers and entities – who do not need to get their accounts audited – and were required to file their ITRs for FY 2018-19 (Assessment Year 2019-20) by July 31, 2019.

It may be noted that both the taxpayers and tax experts were earlier hoping for an extension of the ITR filing deadline in view of a number of changes made in some of the ITR forms for AY2019-20.

It was also brought to the notice of the Income Tax Department earlier that many employees were yet to receive their Form 16 from their employers. Keeping this in view, CBDT had on June 4, 2019, issued a notification extending the deadline for the employers to issue Form 16 to their employees, from 15 June to 10 July. It was, therefore, expected that the ITR filing deadline will also get extended in view of this.

There were also some issues regarding the reporting of LTCG details in the ITR forms. Keeping all these and some other things in view, a majority of people were of the view that the ITR filing deadline will surely get extended from July 31, which has now been done.

Welcoming the CBDT move, tax experts said that this will give a huge relief to taxpayers. “It is a good move by the Income Tax Department as many companies have till date not issued Form 16 to their employees,” said Karan Batra, Founder & CEO of CharteredClub.com.