Deadline for Filing Income Tax Returns will be Extended beyond 31 Dec ?
The due date for filing income tax return is 31 December 2021 for all the taxpayers whos accounts do not required to be audited. The due date for filing income tax returns for AY 2021-22 has been extended by three months to December 31, 2021. as the new tax portal had several bugs and errors and it was promised by Infosys to resolve the same in 3 months time.
The income tax department has created the new portal so that tax return filings is smooth and refund our process faster within 24 hours however the new income tax portal has many bugs and errors and the list keep on increasing as they released new ITRs forms.
Filing of the ITR 1 and ITR 2 is smooth but there are errors in logins, receiving OTP, getting verified and downloading ITR V copies. Further ITR 3, ITR 4, ITR 5 , ITR 6 and ITR 7 have multiple issues. Going by the recent press release by Income Tax Department, the number of returns filed in ITR 5,6 and 7 are in fraction and it seems very likely that the due dates will be extended
Following are some of the request from the taxpayers and professionals on the Twitter handle for extension of the due date and various errors and bugs They have E countered in the income tax portal
As on today there is no official representation by Institute of chartered accountants of India or any other CA Association or Trade Association, however it is very likely if the condition of the income tax portal continues to be the same the due date extension will require. It is interesting to note that most of the time income tax department has extended due date during the last day or week of deadline. Considering it is Christmas and year end, Income Tax Department will extend before 25th will help everyone to plan. Also considering there are more than four crore returns which of pending to be filed it is highly unlikely that income tax department will wait till last minute for extending the due dates
As per source-based information tax department is considering to extend due dates for business and profession and for businesses who is accounts needs to be audited under income tax or under statutory act or under any other act for the time being. This means that individual learning salary or having a pension income will have to file the returns on time much before the due date as portal might not at all be in functional mode in last week, further there are penalties on late filing of the returns.
As per the guidelines from the CBDT, if an individual taxpayer misses the income tax return (ITR) filing deadline of December 31, 2021, then they will have to pay a late fee and file the belated ITR.
A late filing fee of Rs 5,000 along with penal interest at the rate of 1 per cent per month will be levied on the non-payment of tax dues. For returns filed after 31st December 2021, the penalty limit will be increased to Rs 5,000. However, as a relief to small taxpayers, the IT department has stated that if your total income is not more than Rs 5 lakh, the maximum penalty levied for delay will only be Rs 1000.
