ITRs filing: A record high of 8.18 crore tax returns have been filed until December 31 for the Assessment Year (AY) 2023-2024 against 7.51 crore Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed at the end of December 31, 2022, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday (January 1).
This is 9 per cent more than the total Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed for 2022-23.
The total number of audit reports and other forms filed during the period is 1.60 crore, as against 1.43 crore audit reports and forms filed in the corresponding period of the preceding year, the Ministry said in a statement.
Income-Tax Department appreciates taxpayers
"The Income-Tax Department appreciates taxpayers and tax professionals for making compliances in time, leading to a surge in filing of ITRs, resulting in a new record of 8.18 crore ITRs for the AY 2023-2024 filed up to 31.12.2023 as against 7.51 crore ITRs filed up to 31.12.2022," it said.
It is heartening to note that a large number of taxpayers did their due diligence by comparing data of their financial transactions by viewing their Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS).
A substantial portion of the data for all ITRs was prefilled with data pertaining to salary, interest, dividend, personal information, tax payment including TDS-related information, brought forward losses, MAT credit, etc to further ease compliance by taxpayers, it said. "The facility was used extensively, resulting in smoother and faster filing of ITRs," it added.
Digital e-pay tax payment platform
Further, during this financial year 2023-2024, a digital e-pay tax payment platform - TIN 2.0 was made fully functional on the e-filing portal, replacing the OLTAS payment system.
This enabled user-friendly options for e-payment of taxes such as Internet Banking, NEFT/RTGS, OTC, Debit Card, payment gateway and UPI. TIN 2.0 platform has enabled real-time credit of taxes to taxpayers which made ITR filing easier and faster.
To encourage taxpayers to file their ITRs and Forms early, over 103.5 crore outreaches were made through targeted e-mail, SMS and other creative campaigns. Such concerted efforts led to fruitful results with 9 per cent more ITRs being filed for AY 2023-24 till December 31, 2023. The e-filing Helpdesk team handled approximately 27.37 lakh queries from taxpayers during the year upto December 31, 2023, supporting the taxpayers proactively during the peak filing periods, it said.
"Support from the helpdesk was provided to taxpayers through inbound calls, outbound calls, live chats, WebEx and co-browsing sessions. The Helpdesk team also supported the resolution of queries received on the X(Twitter) handle of the Department through Online Response Management (ORM), by proactively reaching out to the taxpayers/ stakeholders and assisting them for different issues on a near real-time basis," it added.
The IT Department further requests to the taxpayers to verify their unverified ITRs if any, within 30 days of filing the ITR to avoid any consequences.
