As the due date (July 31) for filing income tax return is fast approaching, taxpayers are busy filing their returns. However, some taxpayers are seen fretting over the fact that there have been many changes in some of the ITR forms recently, which has made filing the returns difficult for them. For instance, someone has complained on social media that 47 changes in the ITR 2 Form and 53 changes in the ITR 3 Form have been made on July 11, 2019. As a result of this, software providers will take some time to make the changes available. “We are heading for a disaster in income tax return filing this time,” the person complained.
In response to the complaint, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), however, has clarified that “no changes have been made in any of the Income Tax Return (ITR) forms including ITR-2 & ITR-3 since the notification made on 1st April 2019, i.e. on the 1st day of Assessment Year (AY) 2019-20.”
CBDT says that the software utility for e-filing of all income tax return forms was released long back. For example, for the ITR-2 Form, it was released on May 2 and for the ITR-3 Form, it was released on May 10 this year. “Software utility update is a dynamic process, done continuously based on the feedback received from users, to ease e-filing,” it said.
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The Central Board of Direct Taxes further clarified that updating of utility doesn’t hamper filing of the income tax return as taxpayers are allowed to file ITR using utility which is available at that point of time. “More than 85 lakh taxpayers have filed ITRs in ITR-1 by using the said utility, which has also undergone update later,” it said.
The I-T Department says that no changes have been made in the notified ITR forms. Only the utility has been updated to facilitate the taxpayers. So, “the assertion that numerous changes have been made in ITR-2 and ITR-3 on July 11, 2019 does not give a correct picture. Also, the impression that the taxpayers are not able to file return due to changes in ITR form is also not correct as more than 1.38 crore taxpayers have already filed their returns by using the utility released till date,” it said.
It also needs to be noted that even though the utility is being updated regularly by the Income Tax Department to provide ease to taxpayers, the income tax returns filed by using the previous version of utility will continue to be valid, the Department has informed.