ITR Filing AY 2022-23: The due date to file income tax return (ITR) has already passed on July 31, Sunday. As warned, the income tax department or the government did not extend the due date to file ITR for AY 2022-23. However, this does not mean that options are closed for those who did not file their tax returns. Taxpayers can still file their ITRs if they missed the date due to some reason, through a process called ‘belated ITR’. However, they need to pay a penalty in case they want to file a belated ITR as per the provisions of the Finance Act of the government.
What is Belated ITR?
Taxpayers who may not be able to file their IT returns by July 31 can still file them till December 31 as belated return. However, that comes with a price. according to the government rule under the Finance Act, taxpayers can file income tax returns after the due date. The late filing of tax return attracts a fee under Section 234F of the Income Tax Act and the penalty payable by assesses filing a late return increases depending upon the degree of delay.
As per Section 234F, a penalty of Rs 5,000 needs to be paid if one files belated ITR after July 31 by taxpayers with total income of Rs 5 lakh and up. For taxpayers with less than Rs 5 lakh total income, the fine amount is Rs 1,000 while those who are exempt from paying income tax do not have to pay any penalty.
Those who have already filed their income tax returns are also eligible to file a revised return if there was a gap in filing the original tax return. The last date to do this is also December 31, 2022.
However, it must be noted that belated ITR can be filed between August 1 and December 31 and if someone misses that deadline as well, he or she will not be able to do the same unless the Income Tax Department sends a notice.
Record ITRs Filed On Last Day
A record 72.42 lakh income tax returns were filed on the last day of such filing on July 31, taking the cumulative returns to 5.83 crore, near to the same levels of last year. While initially income tax return (ITR) filing was slow, the pace picked up as the deadline neared.
“The surge of filing ITRs peaked on July 31, 2022 (due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases) with over 72.42 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day,” an official statement said. The total ITRs filed till July 31, 2022 for assessment year 22-23 is about 5.83 crore, it said.
Over the last two financial years, the government had extended the deadline for filing ITRs to ease compliance for taxpayers battling Covid pandemic. But this year the deadline was not extended by even by a day. Through ITR, a person is supposed to submit to the Income Tax Department information about the income and the taxes due and paid on it during the year.
