Hurry up! Income Tax Return (ITR) filing deadline looms, but first know this

The clock is ticking for taxpayers who are still to file their Income Tax Return (ITR) for assessment year 2019-20. The Income-Tax Department and CBDT have been releasing various updates on ITR filing and the forms in order to make taxpayers aware and help them go through a seamless filing process. However, the problem is that barely 10 days are left to file ITR as July 31 deadline nears. Generally, the ones who delay their ITR for the last moment, also open themselves up to the possibility of making errors, which results in a whole new procedure which is time consuming and exhausting. While some rely on their Chartered Account (CA) to carry out their ITR filing, some just like to file their own. But delay is something that one should  always avoid. That is exactly what I-T department has been saying to all taxpayers across India. 

A new ad has been published by I-T department, where they are reminding taxpayers about July 31 deadline. The department said, “File your income tax return on or before July 31.” Adding the department also emphasized that, “Avoid Last Minute Rush!” 

“Go Green! E-file  and e-verify your income tax returns,” added the advertisement. 

(Image source: Income Tax Department)

Recently, many social media reports circulated that taxpayers were facing difficulties in filing return of income in ITR-2 & ITR-3 due to large scale changes in the ITR form. However, CBDT shrugged off the news, by clarifying that, no changes have been made in any of the Income-tax Return (ITR) forms including ITR-2 and ITR3 since the notification made on 1st April 2019, i.e. on the 1st day of the Assessment Year 2019-20.

The software utility for e-filing of all the ITR forms has been released long back. However, CBDT said, “the software utility update is a dynamic process and is continuously taken up as per the feedback received from the users/filers to ease their experience in electronic filing of returns.”

Also, CBDT explained that while updating  of utility does not hamper filing of return as the taxpayers are allowed to file using the utility which is available at that point of time. For example, more than 85 lakh taxpayers have filed returns in ITR-1 till date by using the said utility, which has also undergone update later. Therefore, the impression that the taxpayers are not able to file return due to changes in ITR form is also not correct as more than 1.38 crore taxpayers have already filed their returns by using the utility released till date.