Over 5.01 cr income tax returns filed till Jan 4, still less than FY19

Over 5.01 crore Income Tax Returns (ITR) have already been filed till January 4 for the fiscal year 2020-21 , the Income Tax Department has said. The number is still less than the number of ITRs (5.63 crore) filed for FY19, the last date for which was August 31, 2019.

"Over 5.01 crore Income Tax Returns for AY 2020-21 have already been filed till 04th of January, 2021," the Income Tax Department said in a tweet on January 5.

Sharing the latest data on ITRs, the Income Tax Department tweeted on Tuesday: "6,03,531 ITRs have been filed up to 20.00 hrs today (Tuesday) and 57,096 ITRs filed in the last 1 hr."

As per the I-T department, over 2.70 crore ITR-1 (for individuals) have been filed till January 4, which is lower than 3.09 crore filed till September 4, 2019. Similarly, over 1.04 crore ITR-4 returns have been filed till January 4 as compared to 1.28 crore filed by September 4, 2019.

The Central Board of Direct Taxed (CBDT) has extended the last date for filing income tax return (ITR) for FY 2019-20 to January 10, 2021 in view of the pandemic, from the earlier deadline of December 31, 2020.

Usually the taxpayers are supposed to file ITR by July 31 but an exception was made this year due to the pandemic. This is the third time the tax return filing deadline for FY20 has been extended.

Income tax returns are the tax forms used to declare the details of your income to the Income Tax Department to assess the amount you need to pay as income tax in a financial year. The tax return is also necessary to claim a refund of any additional amount that might have been deducted at source (TDS) and deposited with the income-tax department.

Also read: Income Tax Returns filing deadline extended to 10 January