Income Tax Filing: The government is not likely to extend the income tax return filing date, it said on Friday December 31. The last date to file income tax return is December 31. In a press briefing of the GST Council meet chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, revenue secretary Tarun Bajaj confirmed that there are absolutely no chances to extend the due date of ITR filing. As of now, 5.62 crore ITRs have been filed, the government official said.
“More than 5.5 crore #ITRs for AY 2021-22 filed till 11:30 am today! This includes 2.15 lakh #ITRs filed in the last one hour,” the income tax department tweeted on Friday morning. As of now, 5,69,36,838 ITRs have been filed, according to data
“There is no proposal to extend the date for income tax return filing. Income tax return filing is going on smoothly. By 3pm today, 5.62 crore returns have been filed in total. Today, more than 20 lakh returns were filed. This year 60 lakh more returns have been filed,” Bajaj said during the press briefing to reporters.
ITR Form 1 (Sahaj) and ITR Form 4 (Sugam) are simpler Forms that cater to a large number of small and medium taxpayers. Sahaj can be filed by an individual having income up to Rs 50 lakh and who receives income from salary, one house property / other sources (interest etc). ITR-4 can be filed by individuals, HUFs and firms with total income up to Rs 50 lakh and having income from business and profession.
The extended deadline for filing ITR by individuals ends on December 31. The original deadline was July 31, 2021. For the 2019-20 fiscal, 5.95 crore ITRs were filed till the extended deadline of January 10, 2021.
If you are an Indian taxpayer and fail to file your income tax return by the due date of December 31, 2021, as notified by the government, there are several things that may happen to you. However, you should also note that the due date is not same as the last date, and you can still file your ITR by March 31, 2022 under certain conditions. For one, you will lose your right to carry forward any losses that have been incurred during the current year and cannot be set off against the income during the current year.
Submitting your ITR after the due date will also attract a penalty of Rs 5,000 in addition to the above mentioned charges while filing your returns. This is applicable for persons with above Rs 5 lakh income. In case the income is below Rs 5 lakh, the penalty amount is Rs 1,000 as per the government. Therefore, even if you are filing for a non-taxable amount, you still have to pay the penalties.
In case you fail to file your income tax return even after the last date, that is March 31 2022, the I-T department can charge a minimum penalty of 50 per cent of the payable tax amount in addition to all the interest charges and penalties mentioned above. The tax department also has the right to put you behind the bars for a period of three years if the tax to be collected from you exceeds Rs 10,000.
During the GST Council meeting briefing, Sitharaman also said that the council has decided to retain the status quo on GST rate on textile to 5 per cent and not raise it to 12 per cent. The issue of GST rate on textile will be sent to the tax rate rationalization committee which will submit its report by February.
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