ITR E-filing portal glitches: Will Income Tax return deadline be extended beyond July 31?

Taxpayers face challenges while filing income tax returns due to glitches in the e-filing portal, including difficulty in accessing Form 26AS/AIS/TIS.

The deadline for filing income tax returns (ITR) in 2024 is set on July 31. Owing to this, several taxpayers have initiated the filing process and many already filed their income tax returns. The Income Tax Department's website noted, “Over 2.7 crore ITRs have been filed as on 14 July 2024, which is 13% more compared to returns filed during the same period last year. The number of ITRs filed per day has crossed 13 Lakhs on 13 July and is increasing everyday as the due date of 31st July 2024 is approaching. While the milestone of filing of 1 crore of ITRs for AY 2024-25 arrived on 23rd June 2024, the 2 crore milestone arrived on 7th July which is also earlier than last year.”

Tax filers have been facing major glitches with the e-filing portal which prompted the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to write to the Income Tax Department.

But tax filers have been facing major glitches with the e-filing portal which prompted the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to write to the Income Tax Department regarding “Concerns in relation to Form 26AS/TIS/AIS and in e-filing the ITR Forms”.

Chartered Accountant Piyush S Chhajed, Chairman, Direct Taxes Committee, ICAI, said, “As you are kindly aware, section 139(1) of the Act provides for the statutory timeline of 31st July, 2024 for filing of returns of income of for the AN. 2024-25 of individuals, HTJFs, firms who are not subject to tax audit. Many of the taxpayers are facing difficulty in relation to Form 26AS/AIS/TIS due to glitches in the income-tax e filing portal."

What are the glitches taxpayers are facing as per ICAI?

Taxpayers are facing the following problems while filing income tax returns:

Difficulty in accessing Form 26AS/AIS/TIS and discrepancy between figures in the statements, limited response options in AIS/TIS, delayed update of responses in TIS, technical flitches on the Income-tax e-filing Portal, mismatch in pre-filled data, error messages during ITR filing, non-receipt of OTPs for authentication and difficulty in downloading filed ITR Receipts, among others.