New Delhi: Unlike the last three years, the government has no intention of extending the deadline for filing Income Tax returns (ITR). It remains July 31.
Taxpayers should file their ITRs before the due date to avoid paying penalties or other legal consequences. Over the last two financial years, the government extended the deadline for filing ITR to ease compliance for taxpayers battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
The situation is different this year and the Centre isn’t considering extending the deadline. “So far, there is no thinking of extending the last date of filing,” Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said on Friday.
“People thought the routine now is that dates will be extended. So they were a little slow in filling the returns initially but now on a daily basis, we are getting between 15 lakhs to 18 lakh returns. This will slightly go up to 25 lakh to 30 lakh returns,” he told PTI.
“Last time, we had over 50 lakh (filing returns on the last date). This time, I have told my people to be ready for 1 crore (returns filed on the last day),” Bajaj added.
In the last fiscal year 2020-21 (FY21), around 5.89 crore ITRs were filed by the extended due date of December 31, 2021.
