New Delhi, Dec 31: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said that the last date for filing Income Tax Return (ITR) will not be extended. Taxpayers must note that the due date for filing ITR will remain December 31, 2021.
Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj on Friday said that December 31 remains the official deadline for filing of income tax returns. He said returns filed so far are more than those filed in the previous year.
Bajaj said that he was expecting another at least 20-25 lakh returns to come by 12 in the night. “The figures that we were anticipating would have come…There is absolutely no proposal to extend the dates,” Bajaj said.
To a query on the glitches on the I-T portal impacting filing, Bajaj said “I’m okay (with extension) if the returns were less by 1 crore. But the returns filed is more than last year’s… I’m watching the figures every hour… ITR filings are going up to 3 lakh (per hour) “.
So far 5.62 crore ITRs have been filed till Friday. On Friday, 20 lakh returns were filed. Out of the total, three lakh ITRs have been filed in the last hour.
The government has already extended the deadline for filing income tax returns for 2020-21 fiscal year (ended March 2021) by five months till December 31.
Meanwhile, taxpayers who have not e-verified their ITRs for the financial year 2019-20 can complete the verification process by February 28, 2022, as the income tax department has given a one-time relaxation to assessees.
According to law, an ITR, filed electronically without a digital signature, has to be verified electronically through Aadhaar OTP, or net banking, or code sent through a demat account, pre-validated bank account and ATM within 120 days of filing the return.
Alternatively, taxpayers can send a physical copy of the ITR filed to the centralised processing centre (CPC) office in Bengaluru.
