Income Tax Dept. urges taxpayers to file their ITRs before Dec 31 deadline: Here’s what you need to know

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More than 3 crore Income Tax Returns have now been filed on the new e-Filing portal of the Income Tax Department as on December 3.</p>
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The number of ITRs filed per day is over 4 lakh and increasing everyday as the extended due date of December 31 is approaching, according to a statement issued by the Income Tax Department on Sunday.</p>
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“All taxpayers who are yet to file their Income Tax returns for AY (assessment year) 2021-22 are requested to file their returns at the earliest to avoid a last-minute rush,” the Income Tax Department said.</p>
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The Income Tax Department said it strongly urges all taxpayers to view their Form 26AS and Annual Information Statement (AIS) through the e-filing portal to verify the accuracy of the TDS and Tax Payments and avail of pre-filling of ITRs.</p>
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It is important for taxpayers to cross check the data in the AIS statement with their Bank passbook, interest certificate, Form 16 and Capital gains statement from brokerages in case of purchase and sale of equity/Mutual funds etc, the statement added.</p>
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Income Tax Return (ITR) filing has increased to 3.03 crore ITRs for AY 2021-22.  Over 52% of these ITRs are filed using the online ITR form on the portal and the balance are uploaded using the ITR created from the offline software utilities.</p>
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The process of e-verification through Aadhaar OTP and other methods is important for the Department to commence processing of the ITR and to issue refunds, if any. It is encouraging to note that 2.69 crore returns have been e-verified, out of which more than 2.28 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP.</p>
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In November, 48% of the verified ITRs 1, 2 and 4 have been processed on the same day. Of the verified ITRs more than 2.11 crore ITRs have been processed and over 82.80 lakh refunds for AY 2021-22 have been issued. Taxpayers are urged to ensure that the bank account selected for credit of refund has their PAN number linked at the bank to avoid refund failures.</p>
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Overall 8.33 lakh DSCs have been registered. In the simplified process of DSC registration any individual has to register his DSC only once and can use it across any entity where the individual is a partner, director etc without having to re-register again against each entity or role.</p>
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Over 34.01 lakh Statutory Forms have been submitted including 15.11 lakh TDS statements, 1.56 lakh Form 10A for registration of Trusts/institutions, 3.29 lakh Form 10E for arrears of salary, 49,295 Form 35 pertaining to filing of Appeal and 35,342 DTVSV Form 4 till 3rd December, 2021. Over 7.81 lakh 15CA and more than 1.82 lakh 15CB forms have been filed. More than 29.54 lakh e-PANs have been allotted online free of cost.</p>
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The Legal Heir functionality has been enabled for registrations and compliance.</p>
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The Department has been issuing reminders to taxpayers through emails, SMS and media campaigns encouraging taxpayers to file their Income Tax Returns without further delay.</p>