Before the last date to file ITR without any penalty, more than 53 lakh new taxpayers filed their Income Tax Returns for AY 2023-24, according to data shared by the Income Tax Department.

The Department received 53.67 lakh ITRs till 31st July, 2023 from first-time filers, a fair indication of widening of tax base, it said.

July 31 was the due date of ITR filing for salaried taxpayers and other non-audit cases. The Income Tax Department said it appreciates the taxpayers and tax professionals for making compliance in time, leading to a surge in the filing of Income-tax Returns (ITRs), resulting in a new record of ITRs filed.

The total number of ITRs for AY 2023-24 filed till 31st July, 2023 are more than 6.77 crore, which was 16.1% more than the total ITRs for AY 2022-23 (5.83 crore) filed till 31st July 2022.

The filing of ITRs peaked on 31st July, 2023 with over 64.33 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day i.e. on 31st July, 2023.

The Income Tax e-filing portal also observed its highest per hour rate of 4,96,559 of ITR filing between 5 PM to 6 PM on 31st July, 2023, with highest per second rate of ITR filing of 486 (31-Jul-2023: 16:35:06) and highest per minute rate of ITR filing of 8,622 (31-Jul-2023: 17:54).

Also Read: Belated ITR Filing AY 2023-24: Last Date, Fees, Penalty for Late Income Tax Return FY 2022-23

The IT department said that concerted efforts led to fruitful results with taxpayers filing their ITRs for AY 2023-24 relatively earlier compared to the corresponding period of the preceding year.

Form-wise ITRs filed

Out of the 6.77 crore ITRs filed for AY 2023-24, 49.18% of ITRs were ITR-1 (3.33 crore), 11.97% were ITR-2 (81.12 lakh), 11.13% were ITR-3 (75.40 lakh), 26.77% were ITR-4 (1.81 crore) and 0.94% were ITR-5 to 7 (6.40 lakh).

Over 46% of these ITRs have were filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance were filed using offline ITR utilities.

During the peak filing period, e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filing of ITRs. During the period from 1st July, 2023 to 31st July, 2023, there were more than 32 crore successful logins on the e-filing portal. On 31st July, 2023 itself, successful logins stood at 2.74 crore.

More than 5.63 crore returns were also verified by July 31.

“The process of e-verification through Aadhaar OTP and other methods is important for the Department to commence processing of the ITR and to issue refunds, if any. It is encouraging to note that 5.63 crore returns have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.27 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP (94%). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 3.44 crore ITRs for AY 2023-24 have been processed (61%) by 31st July, 2023,” IT department said.

“The Department is thankful for the support in timely compliances and requests all taxpayers to verify their ITRs within 30 days of filing,” it added.