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Chartered accountants and tax professionals are a worried lot as changes in the software for filing income tax returns have left them with less than 10 days to finish the process.
But instead of seeking an extension, a section of tax professionals have sent a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to work out a solution for timely filing of returns.
“It is our experience every time a due date is extended, it has a cascading effect and impacts the entire year’s calendar because now we have due dates coming up almost every month. Extension of one due date necessitates extension of more due dates. This is most undesirable and unwarranted,” the Bombay Chartered Accountants’ Society said in a recent letter to the Finance Minister.
The BCAS, which is amongst the oldest CA bodies with over 9,000 members across the country, has raised five issues — delay in making available the utility for filing, multiple changes in the utilities, requirement of filing ISIN codes and folio numbers of shares sold for long-term capital gains, providing PAN of unlisted companies and also the delay in updation of form 26AS and TDS statement. “In principle, we are against seeking extension of time. At the same time, it is the FM who has to guide the taxpayers and tax professionals what we should do if the government utility is delayed,” said Ameet Patel, Chairman, Taxation Committee, BCAS.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes had last week clarified that no change has been made in income-tax return forms, only the utility software has been updated. “Updating of utility does not hamper filing of return as the taxpayers are allowed to file using the utility which is available at that point of time,” it had said, adding that 1.38 crore entities had filed returns by July 16.
The deadline for filing income-tax returns is July 31 but there are already expectations that this will be extended as the deadline for TDS statement for the fourth quarter of last fiscal and Form 16 for salaried employees was extended to June 30.
“Chartered accountants can’t be blamed every time. This year most of the issues for ITR filing has come because of the Income Tax Department,” said another tax professional, who did not want to be quoted on the issue.
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