As the Income Tax Return (ITR) Filing Due Date for AY 2024-25 is just three weeks away, many taxpayers are facing technical issues with the Income Tax Department’s e-filing portal and demanding an extension of the deadline.
Users have reported problems ranging from basic login difficulties and password resets to more serious issues like discrepancies in pre-filled ITR form data and challenges with e-verification.
Taxpayers have expressed their frustrations on social media, suggesting that the Income Tax Department should have been more prepared for the increase in e-filing. This isn’t the first time such issues have occurred; similar problems have appeared in previous years as well.
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A user in a post on X said, “Kindly work on site performance…site is not working also resolve issue of rebate in case of capital gain … only few days left and no proper improvement in site and no clarification on rebate … only notices getting served timely… geneiune tax payers are fed up of all this…”
In another post on X, CA Abhishek Jain, highlighted that tax professionals and individual taxpayers are experiencing technical issues, such as slow portal speeds, which are impacting access to important forms like 26AS and AIS. Jain has requested an extension of the ITR filing deadline, citing these technical issues as a major obstacle.
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What Did the Income Tax Department Say?
The Income Tax Department has recognized the issues and is working to resolve them but has not provided a timeline for the fix.
The Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association has highlighted several issues faced by taxpayers and professionals while filing their Income Tax returns. These challenges include:
- Difficulty logging into the Income Tax portal intermittently.
- Inability to access or download crucial forms.
- Discrepancies in pre-filled data.
- The portal only provides a few options for submitting responses in AIS and TIS.
- Problems with password resets.
- Issues generating challans for tax payments.
- Error messages during return submission.
- Trouble filing the Income Tax return.
- Challenges with e-verifying the filed return.
- Multiple OTPs being generated.
- Difficulty downloading the ITR receipt.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has also reported several issues taxpayers face when paying taxes and filing returns on the e-filing portal. They have urged for a swift resolution to ensure taxpayers can meet the July 31 deadline. ICAI has also appealed to the government for a more reliable e-filing portal.
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ICAI mentioned difficulties accessing Forms 26AS/AIS/TIS and discrepancies between the figures in these statements and the pre-filled data in ITR forms. They also mentioned that many taxpayers are struggling to access these forms due to the portal’s glitches, which often result in continuous buffering and incomplete form submissions.
Experts believe that despite these issues, the government is unlikely to extend the ITR filing deadline beyond July 31. Therefore, it is important to fix such technical problems to avoid further inconvenience to taxpayers.
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