Deadline For Income Tax Returns (ITR) Nears, Penalty After Due Date

The tax payers will be subject to penalty, if they fail to file their IncomeTax Returns (ITR) till July 31st next.

The ITR filing deadline is July 31 for the fiscal year 2021–2022. This year, unlike prior years, the ITR filing date for the assessment year 2022–23 might not be extended. Over 2.3 crore income tax returns were submitted by July 20 for the fiscal year 2021–2022 last week, and the government is not planning to extend the deadline for ITR filing for the upcoming fiscal year 2022–2023 at this time.

The assessment year for the fiscal year 2021–22 is 2022–23 since the Income Tax Return (ITR) is filed for the income of the prior year.

Taxpayers, who fail to submit their ITR for the tax year 2022–23 by July 31 2022 may still do so by December 31, 2022, but they will be subject to penalties and interest on any unpaid taxes from the previous tax year, 2021–2022. "If you don't submit your ITR by the deadline, you have until December 31, 2022, to do so. If the return is filed beyond the due date but before December 31, 2022, a penalty of Rs. 5,000 is assessed, according to Deepak Jain, CEO of TaxManager.in, a tax e-Filing and Compliance Management Portal.

Section 234F states that if an ITR is filed beyond the deadline, a late filing charge of Rs. 5,000 must be paid. However, if the person's total income does not exceed Rs. 5 lakh, there would be only one late filing cost of Rs 1,000 to pay.

Even after the deadline has passed, you may still file the returns if you are not required to do so but still wish to. If you don't have to file an ITR according to section 139 but want to do so nevertheless after the deadline, there is no late filing charge under section 234F that is applicable in this situation.

According to the income tax regulations, anyone who hasn't submitted a return of income within the window allowed by section 139(1) or within the window allowed by a notice issued under section 142(1) may do so at any time 3 months before the end of the applicable assessment year or before the assessment is finished, whichever comes first.

As a result, filing an ITR by the deadline of July 31 may not qualify for an extension, thus it is preferable to file now rather than wait until the very last minute of the tax filing season.