Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman announced that the last official date for filing tax audit report, income tax returns for audit cases is expected to extend. The officials have sought an extension in the time limit for holding AGMs of companies. On Wednesday PTI reported that the Direct Taxes Professionals Association has taken an initiative to extend the last date of filing the tax audit report under section 44AB to February 28.
Moreover, the team has also urged the Finance Minister about the due date of filing of income tax returns of Assessment Year 2020-21 in audit cases to extend to March 31, 2021. Due to the corona pandemic, normalcy in operation is still in the process to set. Moreover, most of the professionals and staff have badly suffered a Covid-19 infection.
According to the Income Tax Department, around 3.82 crore Income Tax Returns for Annual Year 2020-2021 have been filed till 22nd December 2020. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has officially issued refunds of more than 1.18 crore taxpayers in the period between 1st April 2020 to 20th December 2020. Moreover, the income tax refunds of Rs. 47,608 crore have been issued in 1,1607, 299 cases, and 255 crores have been issued in 2,01,996 crore.
DTPA chairman (PR and representation committee) Narayan Jain said that around 3.75 crores of 5.25 crore assessees have already filed returns. The remaining are small size firms and corporates where tax audit is necessarily required. The Direct Tax professionals body has also a sort of an extension of the date for filing declaration under Vivad se Vishwas (VSV) scheme from December 31, 2020, to February 28, 2021.
The VSV scheme was reportedly announced by the government to settle down the tax dispute cases that have been performed by the taxpayers in the pandemic period. The government is taking efforts to regulate the situation to normal.
