ITR filing last date is July 31. Will income tax return deadline be extended?

Is there a chance of any extension in ITR filing deadline?

There is very low chance that taxpayers this year would get an income tax return extension. The Income Tax department said that over 5 crore ITRs for AY 2024-25 have already been filed as of July 26th this year, compared to July 27th last year. The government did not extend the deadline to file Income Tax Returns (ITR) last year as well. However, it had extended the ITR filing deadline two years prior due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

What has Income Tax department said on the deadline?

The Income Tax Department issued an alert to the public following reports regarding the extension of ITR date. Sharing a screenshot of the announcement being circulated on social media which claimed that the deadline for ITR e-filing has been extended until August 31, 2024, the Income Tax department said that that this is false and the deadline for filing ITR for FY2023-24 is July 31, 2024.

Taxpayers facing glitches on e-filing portal

Taxpayers have faced numerous technical issues on the e-filing portal, including Aadhaar-based OTP authentication, slow page loading and upload errors. Concerns were raised by ICAI, All Gujarat Federation of Tax Consultants and Income Tax Bar Association, Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association (KSCAA) CA to rectify these issues.

Last week, the CBDT chairman said as per news agency PTI, “We are engaging closely with our service providers Infosys, IBM and Hitachi who are on the job. The volumes are high and the compliance is also good… I have been assured that the website will function properly”.