The government is not considering extending the last date, July 31, for filing income tax returns, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj told. The government is not extending the last date for filing as it expects most returns to come in by the due date of July 31.
Although the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns (ITRs) is July 31, one can still file returns till December 31. This is called belated returns. Not filing an ITR by the due date may attract a fine of Rs 10,000 and the Income Tax department may also send a legal notice to you.
"For this fiscal year 2021-22, over 2.3 crore income returns were filed by July 20 and the numbers are picking up," Tarun Bajaj said.
![Centre not considering extension of ITR filing deadline: Revenue Secretary Centre not considering extension of ITR filing deadline: Revenue Secretary](/img/preview/custom/itupdate.jpg?imgver=21585)
"People thought the routine now is that dates will be extended. So they were a little slow in filling the returns initially but now on a daily basis, we are getting between 15 lakhs to 18 lakh returns. This will slightly go up to 25 lakh to 30 lakh returns," Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj said.
"Previously, 50,000 people were filing returns daily and now this number has gone up to 20 lakh. I am confident that returns will go up in the next few days and people will file their returns," he said.
Notably, the government had extended the deadline for filing ITRs to ease compliance for taxpayers battling Covid-19 pandemic over the last two financial years.