If you have not filed your Income Tax Return -ITR

If you have not filed your Income Tax Return (ITR) as yet Don’t worry!! It’s not too late.

Filing of income tax return (ITR) becomes mandatory if we have any taxable income or if any tax has been deducted at source. The deadline for filing the ITR is generally 31st July. This deadline is for individual tax payers where requirement of audit of books of accounts is not required. This year this deadline was extended up to 31st of August 2019..

At Taxbuddy we are receiving many queries from people wanting to know whether ITR can be filed for AY 2019-20 i.e. financial year 2018-19 now. There seems to be some confusion in the minds of taxpayers in this regard…

So here is the answer to your question.

In cases where ITR has not been filed before due date (31st August 2019), the taxpayer can file the ITR before 31st March 2020. So really one need not worry on this count. It is advisable that you file the pending ITR without any further delay.

If this belated ITR is filed before 31st December 2019, a penalty of ₹5000/- has to be paid.

If filing of ITR is further delayed beyond 31st December 2019, penalty of ₹10,000/- would be levied. This penalty is as per newly inserted section 234F of Income Tax Act 1961. The amount of penalty would not exceed ₹1000/-, if total income is less than ₹5 lakh.

Here it is also important to note that ITR for AY 2019-20 cannot be filed after 31st March 2019.

If you have any pending tax liability to be paid before filing return, then interest would be charged on the unpaid tax amount in such cases. Furthermore, losses if any, cannot be carried forward if return is not filed before due date.