The Income Tax Department has marked a new milestone as more than 6 crore Income Tax Returns (ITR) had been filed as of 30th July 2023. Almost 26.76 lakh ITRs have been submitted as of 6:30 p.m. on 30th July. The last date for filing the ITR is today 31st July 2023.
According to the department, as of 6.30 p.m., there had been more than 1.30 crore successful logins to the e-filing system. Many taxpayers have also faced issues with the income tax portal as a result of the server being down.
The income tax department’s help desk is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to assist taxpayers with ITR filing, tax payment, and other related services. In addition, the department provides phone, live chat, WebEx meetings, and social media help.
There has been no word from the Ministry or CBDT authorities to extend the last date of the Income tax return filing. The Sales Tax Bar Association and the Gujarat Tax Advocates Association have written to the Ministry, requesting that they consider the current national circumstances and extend the deadline. In addition to the common issues, the Income Tax Portal is causing considerable difficulty in filing ITR on time.
In addition, the All India Cost Management Accountants Association (AICMAA) asked the finance ministry to permanently extend the Income Tax Returns (ITR) filing deadline from 31st July to 31st August. The group raised many concerns that the ministry must address on behalf of all taxpayers and professionals:
- Although ITR Forms were duly informed much in advance in order to allow return filing from the start of the following Assessment Year, the final version of the JSON Schema for ITR for the Assessment Year 2023-2024 was enabled at the beginning or middle of June.
- TDS/TCS statement filing deadlines are till 31st May for the previous year’s fourth quarter. Hence, Form 16 and Form 16A are only available to taxpayers after that date. Taxpayers will be unable to file until TDS is shown in Form 26AS.
- However, AIS is enough for the vast majority of taxpayers to file an ITR. Because AIS is not perfect, we must be aware of and carefully analyze all of the figures reflected on it.