The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended the due date for filing income tax returns to 31st August 2018 from this July 31st.
As the due date has been coming closer, the Board had received several requests from the tax practitioners body and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) requesting a due date extension due to several reasons.
“For certain categories of taxpayers, the ‘due-date’ of filing income-tax return for assessment-year 2018-2019 is 31.07.2018. Upon consideration of the matter, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, in exercise of its powers under section 119 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘Act’), hereby, extends the ‘due-date’ of filing income-tax return, as prescribed in section 139(1) of the Act, from 31st July, 2018 to 31st August, 2018,” the CBDT said in an order.
From the current Assessment Year onwards, non-filing of ITR before due date will invite late fee of Rs. 1,000/5,000/1-0,000 as the case may be, under section 234F of the Income Tax Act.
The Board had notified the new Income Tax Return forms for the assessment year 2018-19 on April 5. The income Tax department has launched all the income tax forms for e-filing after more than a month of them being notified.
Further, due to GST and the over burden of compliance procedure, the tax practitioners were unable to finish their IT works. It is in this background, the people urged the Board to extend due date.
