Over 20 million I-T returns filed on new portal; many glitches rectified

More than 20 million returns have been filed for the assessment year 2021-22 on the new income tax portal, showing signs of stability after long-drawn complaints of technical glitches. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement that out of the total 20 million, more than 17 million returns had been e-verified. Encouraged by the response, CBDT has asked taxpayers to file their returns at the earliest. 

However, a government official said that only “peak load”, close to the tax filing deadline, would be able to determine whether the system is running smoothly or not. The government had extended the tax filing deadline till December 31.

Complex cases involving business income from futures and options (F&O) trading, stock market transactions filing are still facing difficulties, according to the official. “Such transactions, working with margin money, are complex. Error occurs when such complex computations are being disclosed in the filing.’’  

Infosys has been asked to address issues linked to complex filings. Giving out the details of returns filed, CBDT said processing of ITRs 2 and 3 would be taken up shortly. F&O (futures and options) related filing is to be done under ITR 3 and 4, depending on a variety of factors. ITRs 1 and 4 constitute 86 per cent of the total returns filed on the portal. Around 14.9 million returns are through Aadhaar-based OTP.

The process of e-verification through Aadhaar OTP and other methods is important for the department to commence processing of the ITR and to issue refunds, if any, CBDT said.

Of the verified ITRs 1 and 4, over 10.6 million have been processed and more than 3.6 million have been issued. 

"A number of technical issues have since been resolved and the performance of the portal has substantially stabilised," the CBDT said, adding that over 134.4 million unique taxpayers have logged in till October 13 and about 5.4 million have used the 'forgot password' facility to obtain their passwords. E-proceedings and faceless proceedings have also been enabled with functionalities including video conferencing for assessment and seeking adjournments or appointment and filings by authorized representatives.

Taxpayers have been able to view over 1.2 million notices issued by the department under the faceless assessment/appeal/penalty proceedings, to which over 624,000 responses have been filed, CBDT said.