ITR filing last date today: Late fee or jail term or both? What happens if you miss the deadline?

The last day for filing income tax returns for FY 2021-22 (AY 2022-23) for salaried individuals is about to end and the Union Finance Ministry has clarified that the deadline will not be extended. 

Taxpayer will a net annual income or more than Rs 2.5 lakh are legally required to file the ITR before the deadline of they may be subjected to penalties and fines. 

The penalties and fines are specified under Section 234F of the Income Tax Act, 1961. These are imposed by the Income Tax Department. 

The department has been sending reminders regarding the ITR filing deadline to eligible taxpayers via email and text messages. Corporates or those who are required to audit their books of accounts can file their returns by October 31 of the assessment year. 

What happens if you miss the deadline?

If the taxpayer fails to file the income tax return by July 31, a fine will be imposed under Section 234F. The penalty amount for filing returns past the deadline would be Rs 5,000 if ITR is reported before December 31 of the Assessment Year and Rs 10,000 if ITR is reported after December 31, but before March 31 of the Assessment Year.

Also, if a person fails to file ITR by the due date and has an outstanding unpaid tax, then under Section 234A, an interest on the outstanding tax amount at 1 per cent per month will be levied since the prescribed due date. If a person with taxable income fails to file his ITR or is found to under-report his income in the returns, then he/she has to pay 50 per cent of the total tax payable on the income for which no return was furnished. 

The department may intimate legal proceedings against the taxpayer in case the latter fails to file the ITR by the given last date December 31, 2022 for AY 2022-23. The law provides for imprisonment of up to 6-7 months if a taxpayer doesn’t file the ITR within the stipulated timeline. 

FAQs by Income Tax Department

The Income Tax Department said that taxpayers who do not have Aadhaar registered mobile number but want to reset the password on their income tax e-filing portal can do so using DSC or logging into internet banking. 

For self-assessment tax paid but not reflecting in prefilled details, the I-T department said it takes 3 to 4 days for different banks to provide information to the department. Post that, it gets prefilled in the Tax-returns/Pre-filled JSON.

“Taxpayers may opt to wait for the required time-period for auto reflecting details of the Taxes paid in ITR. Alternatively, in such cases where the taxpayer has already filled in additional details over and above the pre-filled details, such payment details can be entered manually after clicking on ‘Add Details’ link for Advance Tax and Self- Assessment Tax Payment details under Schedule “Taxes Paid”,” the I-T department said.