NEW DELHI: As the last date for individuals to file their income tax returns (ITR) is approaching, tax professionals have taken to social media platforms demanding extension in the date for return filing.
According to experts, due to delay in the updation of Form 26 AS, which is a consolidated annual statement having details of tax deducted at source (TDS), tax collected at source (TCS), advance tax and self assessment tax paid by the assessee, the taxpayers are left with very less time to do all the formalities and due diligence.
The last date for individual return filing is 31 July. The finance ministry sources have been saying that it is unlikely that the deadline for filing ITR will be extended.
"Form 26 AS gets updated by June 10-15. It is dependent upon TDS returns. Deadline for filing TDS returns is May 31. The Government data related to January-March is never updated on time. So, the tax professionals are left with only 45 days to file returns. This time the duration is very short," Chetan Daga, Partner at AdvantEdge Consulting Group said.
"At the end of the financial year, work gets piled up. So, the time in hand to do the review and all the formalities related to return filing falls very short, " Daga added.
Kunal Singhal, a senior partner at chartered accountancy firm Suresh Chandra & Associates, suggests that the government should increase the time gap between processing of TDS returns and return filing date.
"In case of individual taxpayers, regular books of account are not maintained, so the workload increases at the last minute both for the taxpayer and the consultant. Extension is not the solution for this and every year one can't seek for date extension. The centre should look to increase the gap between the processing of TDS returns and providing the Form 16/ 16A and the due dates of filing the returns by the taxpayer," Singhal said.
"Currently, by the time TDS certificates are processed in June, due dates for filing returns arrive in July. This causes mental pressure as workload increases," he further added.
According to data available with the Income Tax department, 3.10 crore ITRs for assessment year 2022-23 have been filed, 2.5 crore have been verified and 1.83 crore have been processed as of 25 July.