Income tax return filing deadline for FY 2021-22 extended till March 15: CBDT

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Tuesday informed that they have extended the deadline for the filling of the ITR assessment of the last financial year 2021-2022, till March 15, 2022. The government had extended the deadline for the third time in the last financial year, the previous deadline was till December 31, 2021. The government wants to give another chance to the taxpayers to file a financial assessment of their expenses and income of last year.

“On consideration of difficulties reported by the taxpayers and other stakeholders due to COVID and in electronic filing of various reports of audit under the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act), the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has decided to further extend the due dates for filing of Income Tax Returns and various reports of audit for the Assessment Year 2021-22,” the government statement said.

5.89 Crore Income Tax Returns filed till December 31

The Union Ministry of Finance on Saturday informed that nearly 5.89 crore Income Tax returns (ITRs) have been filed on the e-filing portal till the December 31 deadline. Of the total ITRs filed, over 46.11 lakh ITRs were filed on Friday. The government also informed that its helpdesk responded to 16,850 calls from taxpayers and 1,467 chats.

Additionally, the IT department is also engaging with and reaching out to taxpayers on its official Twitter handle. On Friday alone, more than 230 tweets were responded to.

"Out of 5.89 crore ITRs filed for AY 2021-22 as on 31st December, 49.6% of these are ITR1 (2.92 crore), 9.3% are ITR2 (54.8 lakh), 12.1% are ITR3 (71.05 lakh), 27.2% are ITR4 (1.60 crore), 1.3% are ITR5 (7.66 lakh), ITR6 (2.58 lakh) and ITR7 (0.67 lakh). Over 45.7% of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR form on the portal and the balance have been uploaded using the ITR created from the offline software utilities," the government said.

In comparison with AY 2020-21, as of January 10, 2021, 5.95 crores were filed with 31.05 lakh Income Tax Returns on the last day as against more than 46.11 lakh ITRs filed on the last day this year. If you have not paid your ITR then here is a step-by-step guide for filing Income Tax Return online.

How to file Income Tax Return online? Check a step-by-step guide HERE.

Image: Shutterstock