August 2, 2023: The total number of income tax returns (ITRs) for assessment year (AY) 2023-24 filed till July, 31, 2023 was more than 6.77 crore, the finance ministry said on August 1. This is 16.1% more than the total ITRs for AY 2022-23 (5.83 crore) filed till July 31, 2022.
“The filing of ITRs peaked on 31st July 2023 (due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases) with over 64.33 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day. The e-filing portal also observed its highest per hour rate of 4,96,559 of ITR filing between 5 PM to 6 PM on 31st July, 2023, with highest per second rate of ITR filing of 486 (31-Jul-2023: 16:35:06) and highest per minute rate of ITR filing of 8,622 (31-Jul-2023: 17:54),” the ministry said.
The income tax department also received 53.67 lakh ITRs till July from first time filers, a fair indication of widening of tax base.
Campaigns on the social media along with targeted e-mail and SMS campaigns were launched to encourage the taxpayers to file their ITRs early. Such concerted efforts led to fruitful results with taxpayers filing their ITRs for AY 2023-24 relatively earlier compared to the corresponding period of the preceding year.
Out of the 6.77 crore ITRs filed for AY 2023-24, 49.18% of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.33 crore), 11.97% are ITR-2 (81.12 lakh), 11.13% are ITR-3 (75.40 lakh), 26.77% are ITR-4 (1.81 crore) and 0.94% are ITR-5 to 7 (6.40 lakh). Over 46% of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance have been filed using offline ITR utilities.
During the peak filing period, e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filing of ITRs. During the period from July 1 to 31, there were more than 32 crore successful logins on the e-filing portal. On July 31, successful logins stood at 2.74 crore.
“It is heartening to note that a large number of taxpayers did their due diligence by comparing data of their financial transactions by viewing their Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS). A substantial portion of the data for ITR-1,2,3 and 4 was already prefilled with data pertaining to salary, interest, dividend, personal information, tax payment including TDS related information, brought forward losses, MAT credit etc to further ease compliance for taxpayers. The taxpayers used this facility extensively, resulting in smoother and faster filing of ITRs,” said the ministry.
Also, 5.63 crore returns have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.27 crore are through Aadhaar-based OTP (94%). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 3.44 crore ITRs for AY 2023-24 have been processed (61%) by July 31.
Further, a new e-pay tax payment platform TIN 2.0 was made available on the e-filing portal, replacing the earlier Protean (NSDL)- based OLTAS payment system. This enabled provision of more user-friendly options for e-payment of taxes and making available higher number of options for mode of payments such as Internet Banking, NEFT/RTGS, OTC, Debit Card, payment gateway and UPI. TIN 2.0 platform has enabled real time credit of taxes to taxpayers which made ITR filing easier and faster. Over 1.26 crore challans have been received through TIN 2.0 payment system in the month of July 2023 itself, while total challans filed through TIN 2.0 since April 1, 2023, stands at 3.56 crore.
The e-filing Helpdesk team has handled approximately 5 lakh queries from taxpayers in July 2023, supporting the taxpayers proactively during the peak filing period. The support from the helpdesk was provided to taxpayers through inbound calls, outbound calls, live chats, webex and co-browsing sessions. The Helpdesk team also supported resolution of queries received on the Twitter handle of the Department through Online Response Management (ORM), by proactively reaching out to the taxpayers/ stakeholders and assisting them for different issues on a near real-time basis.
The department urged taxpayers who missed the due date to complete their filing immediately.
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