Legal notice to Income tax dept for not extending ITR filing deadline

• January 7, 2022
• CA Chandan Agarwal's Office

AOTAA has asked for the ITR filing deadline to be extended as well as the late filing fee collected to be returned to the assessees.

The All Odisha Tax Advocates Association (AOTAA) has issued a legal notice to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for not extending ITR filing deadline of filing returns of assessees of Odisha for the Assessment Year 2021-2022 and imposing late filing fee under section 234F of the Income Tax Act, 1961, in spite of many technical glitches in the new portal of the Income Tax Department. (ET Wealth online has a copy of the legal notice.)

“Please take notice that after receipt of this letter if your good office doesn’t extend the due date for filing of Income Tax Returns as well as Tax Audit Reports to 31/03/2022, then our Association would be constrained to file PIL in the Hon’ble High Court of Orissa with a prayer to direct you to extend the due date for filing of return and Tax Audit Reports for the Assessment Year: 2021-2022 and return back the late filing fees collected u/s.234F of the Act,” stated the legal notice dated January 4, 2022.

According to the legal notice, “That although the old portal of the Income Tax Department was working flawlessly and it was user friendly, but the Union Finance Ministry entrusted M/s Infosys Ltd to develop the new portal after the beginning of the Assessment Year:2021-2022. That as per earlier directions of the Hon’ble High Courts CBDT failed to upload schema of the returns forms in the portal in time.”

The income tax return (ITR) filing deadline for FY 2020-21 (December 31, 2021) was not extended any further by the government. Even though the ITR filing deadline was extended twice for the financial year, many were not able to complete the exercise on time due to many glitches on the newly launched e-filing portal.

The legal notice also pointed out: That the new portal has been so designed that it takes maximum time to fill up the return forms and upload the same. In certain occasions, the portal was hanged in between filling the ITR forms, which caused inconveniences to the assessees for which the assessees as well as Tax Professionals faced a lot of difficulties in filing those forms by 31/12/2021.

These are the other points mentioned in the legal notice by AOTAA as to why the ITR deadline shou ..