CBDT Reported Over 2 Cr Income Tax Returns Filed On The e-Filing Portal

As of October 13th, 2021, the Income Tax Department's e-filing website (www.incometax.gov.in) has received over 2 crore Income Tax returns. Until October 13th, 2021, over 13.44 crore unique taxpayers have been newly registered.

Approximately 54.70 lakh taxpayers have used the 'forgot password' feature to retrieve their credentials. E-filing is now accessible for all Income Tax Returns. Over 2 crore ITRs for the fiscal year 2021-22 have been filed on the platform, with ITRs 1 and 4 accounting for 86% of the total.

Over 1.70 crore returns have been e-verified, with 1.49 crore using Aadhaar-based OTP. E-verification by Aadhaar OTP and other means is required for the Department to begin processing the ITR and initiate refunds, if applicable. Over 1.06 crore ITRs have been processed from the validated ITRs 1 and 4, and over 36.22 lakh refunds have been granted for the fiscal year 2021-22. The processing of ITRs 2 and 3 will begin soon.

The Digital Signature (DSC) registration of non-residents has been enabled and overall 4.87 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, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has reported in a statement issued on 14th October 2021.

According to the statement of CBDT, Over 15.72 lakh Statutory Forms have been submitted including 9.08 lakh TDS statements, 1.29 lakh Form 10A for registration of Trusts/institutions, 1.98 lakh Form 10E for arrears of salary, 23,920 Form 35 pertaining to the filing of Appeal and 22,075 DTVSV Form 4 till 13th October 2021. In response to feedback from taxpayers, the submission process of 15CA and 15CB forms required for foreign remittances have been revamped. Over 1.83 lakh 15CA and 37,870 15CB forms have been filed. More than 21.40 lakh ePANs have been allotted online free of cost. The Legal Heir functionality has been enabled for registrations and compliance.

Furthermore, e-proceedings and faceless proceedings now include video conferencing options for assessment and requesting adjournments or appointment and submissions by Authorized Representatives. Over 12.20 lakh Notices were granted by the Department under the Faceless Assessment/Appeal/Penalty procedures, to which over 6.24 lakh responses were recorded.

All taxpayers should view their Form 26AS through the e-filing portal to verify the accuracy of the TDS and Tax Payments and avail of pre-filling of ITRs. And also all taxpayers who are yet to file their Income Tax returns for AY 2021-22 are requested to file their returns at the earliest, said the income Tax Department in a statement.

The new portal was launched on 7th June 2021 and in the initial period, taxpayers had reported glitches and difficulties in the functioning of the portal. A number of technical issues have since been resolved and the performance of the portal has substantially stabilized, CBDT further clarified.