14% taxpayers could miss ITR filing deadline due to heavy monsoon and floods: Survey

Over 14 per cent of individual income taxpayers admitted that they will not be able to meet the July 31 deadline, showed a survey by LocalCircles on Friday.

Out of 12,000 people who responded to this survey, 27 per cent admitted that they are still left to file their income tax returns. The data shows that while 7 in 10 have already filed their income tax returns. Five per cent of the respondents have tried but had difficulty in filing and will try again to file by July 31. 

Eight per cent of those surveyed admitted that they haven’t filed their returns yet but will comfortably do so before month end. Five per cent admitted they haven’t filed it and it will take a significant effort to do so before the deadline and nine per cent indicated that it will be impossible for them to file the income tax returns by July 31. 

In effect, 14 per cent of respondents admitted that they will likely be unable to file their income tax returns by the deadline.

According to the report, the reason behind the delay is mainly due to heavy monsoon and floods in July that have hit lives in several parts of India. Be it floods leading to landslides in Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand or excessive rains in Telangana, parts of Gujarat and Maharashtra or displacement of thousands in Delhi NCR due to Yamuna banks and surrounding areas getting flooded, India is experiencing a very unusual July. 

Many of the above states have not only faced floods and water logging but as a result power outages for long hours and in some areas for days. Life and work of hundreds of thousands is yet to come back to normal. Unfortunately for many, these disruptions have meant not being able to file their income tax returns by the end of July as required. As the deadline approaches many have shared concerns on social media and the LocalCircles platform about being unable to meet the deadline for filing individual income tax returns 

Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra last week stated that an extension of July 31, 2023 deadline for filing income tax return for financial year 2022-23 was unlikely and taxpayers should rush to complete filing their income tax returns before the deadline. To understand the status of returns filling, LocalCircles reached out to citizens across the country via a national survey.

The survey received over 12,000 responses from citizens located in 315 districts of India. 68 per cent respondents were men while 32 per cent respondents were women. 41 per cent respondents were from tier 1, 32 per cent from tier 2 and 27 per cent respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts. 

Failure to meet the deadline on filling the ITR could result in a penalty of Rs 5,000 under Section 234F. However, individuals with income below Rs 5 lakh will face a reduced penalty of ₹1,000.

The feedback from people in community discussions on LocalCircles indicates that the Government should consider granting just a two-week deadline extension as that will give time to many income taxpayers in the flood affected states to do the needful as the situation on ground normalises a bit. Alternatively, the Government could consider giving deadline extension to residents of just those states.

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