The Income Tax Bar Association said the portal is “not functioning properly” and urged the government to extend the deadline till August 31.
Even as the ITR filing deadline of July 31 is fast approaching, a total of 3.42 crore ITRs have so far been filed for the current assessment year 2024-25. However, an income tax practitioners body said the I-T portal is “not functioning properly” and urged the government to extend the deadline till August 31.
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“It is bring to your attention that once again the income tax portal is not functioning properly for almost a month by now. There are many glitches like — slow speed of portal, upload-related issues, non-responsive pages, no response from UIDAI for Aadhaar-based OTP verification,” the Income Tax Bar Association (ITBA), which is the oldest association for tax professionals in India established in 1947, said in a letter to the finance ministry.
In the letter to the government, the ITBA that in light of the portal not functioning properly and heavy reporting requirement, the government is kindly requested to:
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1) Instruct the technical team, vendor and officials responsible for maintenance of the portal to ensure that it functions smoothly just like the last year which can cater the increasing taxpayer base.
2) Extend the due date for the assessment year 2024-25 from July 31, 2024, to August 31, 2024.
An income tax practitioner also told news18.com, “There are various issues with income tax portal for the past 20 days, including login issues. There are also issues with submitting schedules in ITR 3. The whole portal is very slow and full of glitches this time. Last year, the portal was seamless even till last date.”
ITBA said it is to bring to your notice that the taxpayers and tax professionals are working hard as now very less time is available for filing income tax returns for the assessee (except audit) having due date of July 31. This year, various issues are witnessed in updating the data in AIS and TIS, which are delayed this year and are still being updated,” it added.
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In the previous assessment year 2023-24, India saw record high ITR filings of around 6.77 crore till July 31, 2023. However, till December 31, 2023, the number of ITRs filed increased to 8.18 crore.
According to the latest data available on the income tax portal, so far, 3.43 ITRs have been filed.
“The statistics this year is lower than last year due to tech glitches. Last year, over 6.5 crore ITR filing took place till July 31. Now, the number is just around half of it when the ITR deadline is just 12 days away,” the tax practitioner said.
