As the last date of Income Tax Return (ITR) filing, September 15, approaches, the pressure is increasing. The pace of return filing on the Income Tax Department’s portal is slow and taxpayers and professional bodies across the country are demanding an extension of the deadline.
How many ITRs have been filed so far?
According to official data, around 5.14 crore ITRs have been filed till September 9, while the number of registered individual taxpayers is 13.37 crore. Of these, more than 4.84 crore returns have been verified and about 3.49 crore have been processed.
This deadline applies to individual taxpayers whose accounts are not required to be audited.
ITR Filing Deadline Extension: Demands of professional bodies
Several trade and professional bodies have written to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) appealing to extend the deadline.
The Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FKCCI) and the Chartered Accountants Association, Surat (CAAS) say that this year there are frequent technical glitches on the portal and ITR utilities were released late. “This time the compliance burden is unusually high,” CAAS said.
The Bombay Chartered Accountants Society (BCAS) wrote to the CBDT on September 1, seeking extension of deadlines for ITR filing, tax audit and transfer pricing.
The Tax Bar Association, Bhilwara has complained of data mismatch in AIS, TIS and Form 26AS. He said that problems like login failure and timeout are being faced frequently on the portal.
Groups from Chandigarh and Gujarat have also said that due to late receipt of utilities, there was not enough time to prepare tax returns.
Problems of taxpayers
Problems on the portal are also a headache for common taxpayers.
Many users are facing difficulty in logging in.
The filing process gets stuck in the middle.
The figures in AIS and Form 26AS do not match, due to which data is getting mismatched.
There is also confusion regarding refund adjustment and data verification.
Will the ITR filing last date be extended?
All these reasons have directly affected the pace of ITR filing. Now both professional bodies and taxpayers are hoping that CBDT will give relief this time too and the date of September 15 will be extended. However, there has been no official statement from the government on this yet.