The extended September 30 deadline to file Income Tax Return (ITR) may have to be delayed again owing to ongoing glitches and problems with the new tax filing e-portal of the Income-Tax Department. The last date for filing ITR every year was July 31 but it was extended to September 30 this year because the government wanted to give some relief to the taxpayers hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Infosys, which developed the I-T Department’s new e-filing portal, was given till September 15 by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to fix the issues which have continued since the inception of the website. This means that taxpayers will be left only with 15 days to file the ITR before the expiry of the due date on a new system which even experienced chartered accounts found difficult to operate owing to various bugs and issues in it.
All this had led representatives of various chartered accountant associations in India to demand that the Finance Ministry postpones the due date for ITR filing deadline.
Chartered Accountant Deepak Shah, Chairman, Taxation Committee, Bombay Chartered Accountant told ET Wealth Online, “the deadline for individuals and entities other than companies whose accounts are not liable to audit, is September 30, 2021. This needs to be further extended because the new e-filing portal continues to have ongoing glitches for the last two months. We chartered accountants, as professionals, do not want the last date to be extended as it increased our problems. However, there seems to be no other choice now.”
Extending the September 30 deadline will have spillover over other due dates of audit cases. It is very difficult to cope with multiple deadlines within a short span of time.
“Furthermore, considering the significant/multiple problems of the income tax portal which the government, income tax portal vendor, and all stakeholders are witnessing, the only option left is to suo-moto extend all the deadlines, that too well in advance, while ensuring that the glitches are solved expeditiously. This will result in better compliance and re-generate confidence in professionals and the taxpayers,” he added.
Ketan Vajani, President, Chamber of Tax Consultants, said the new e-filing portal has been riddled with glitches ever since its launch on June 7, 2021. The response of time of the website is very slow and the website has even discontinued support for uploading Form 10-IE, which is needed by those individuals and HUFs that wish to be taxed under the new tax regime under the provisions of the Section 115BAC of the IT Act.
Abhishek Soni, CEO, Tax2win.in which is an ITR filing website said the new portal was unavailable for two days —August 21 and 22. Also, the portal is very slow, the pre-filled data, promised by the new website is also filled with glitches. He expects the I-T department to take all the difficulties faced in filing ITRs and provide an extension to give relief to taxpayers.
