Govt extends deadline for filing Income Tax Returns to August 5 following complaints

Deadline to file Income Tax Returns extended to August 5

The deadline to file Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the financial year 2016-17 has been extended by five days to August 5, the Income Tax department said today. This comes only a day after a top official had said that the department would not extend the deadline to file ITRs beyond July 31.

With the new deadline, all taxpayers have to file their returns for 2016-17 fiscal before August 5, 2017.

Announcing the decision, the official twitter handle of the Income Tax Department said the move was made "in view of difficulties faced by taxpayers."

"In view of the difficulties faced by taxpayers, date for filing of Income Tax Returns for FY 2016-17 has been extended to 5th August, 2017," Income Tax India tweeted.

A senior official of the department said the decision to extend the deadline ending today was taken after a meeting of the revenue department and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) was held in the finance ministry today. The last minute inundation and heavy logging on the official website of the e-filing portal of the department led to the extension of five more days for filing the ITRs by

taxpayers.

The department, till yesterday, however had maintained that no extension would be given as already over 2 crore returns have been received and no major glitches on the portal had been detected.

"The department has already received over 2 crore returns filed electronically. The department requests taxpayers to file their return in time,” the official said.

This time, the linking of the Aadhaar number with the PAN (Permanent Account Number) of a taxpayer has been made mandatory for filing of an ITR, beginning July 1. The department has also asked taxpayers to declare cash deposits made in bank accounts aggregating to Rs 2 lakh or more, post demonetisation between November 9-December 30 last year, in the ITRs.

The ITRs to be filed by July 31 pertain to 2016-17 fiscal or assessment year 2017-18.

Linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done before August 31

Meanwhile, the government today said that linking of PAN with Aadhaar has to be done before August 31, 2017.

"Govt decided for e-filing return, it is sufficient to quote Aadhaar or acknowledgement No. for having applied for Aadhaar in e-filing website. Actual linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done subsequently, but any time before 31st August, 2017. However, the returns will not be processed until the linkage of Aadhaar with PAN is done," Ministry of Finance said in a statement posted on Twitter.

"In order to facilitate e-filing of return, Govt has decided to give extension of 5 days. The return can be now filed upto 5th August, 2017," it said.