Income Tax Web Portal To Remain Closed From June 1 To June 6, See Details

New Delhi: The Income Tax department will soon launch a new web portal for taxpayers to make the routine Income Tax Returns filing process easier and hassle-free, informed officials on Thursday.

The officials also added that the existing web portals shall shut for six days between June 1 and June 6. In order to avoid any inconvenience to taxpayers, the Department will not fix any compliance dates during this period.

Taxpayers shall be encouraged to complete all their urgent tasks involving any submission, upload or downloads before June 1 to avoid any difficulty during the blackout period.

The new e-filing portal (www.incometax.gov.in) shall be aimed at providing taxpayer convenience and a modern, seamless experience:

• New taxpayer friendly portal integrated with immediate processing of Income Tax Returns(ITRs) to issue quick refunds to taxpayers
• All interactions and uploads or pending actions will be displayed on a single dashboard for follow-up action by taxpayer
• Free of cost ITR preparation software available online and offline with interactive questions to help taxpayers fill ITR even without any tax knowledge, with pre-filling, for minimizing data entry effort
• New call center for taxpayer assistance for immediate answers to taxpayer queries with FAQs, Tutorials, Videos and chatbot/live agent
• All key portal functions on desktop will be available on Mobile App which will be enabled subsequently for full anytime access on mobile network
• New online tax payment system on new portal will be enabled subsequently with multiple new payment options using netbanking, UPI, CreditCard and RTGS/NEFT from any account of taxpayer in any bank, for easy payment of taxes.

On the other hand, the government has extended the due date of filing income tax returns (ITR) for the financial year 2020-21 by two months till September 30, to provide relief to taxpayers.

The Finance Ministry also extended the timelines for various tax compliances under the Income-Tax Act,1961, to address difficulties faced by taxpayers during the pandemic.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) also extended the ITR filing deadline for companies by a month till November 30.

The extended timelines extended by the government are as follows:

• According to the income tax law, the deadline to file ITR for those taxpayers whose accounts are not required to be audited and who usually file their returns on income using ITR-1 or ITR-4 forms is July 31
• The deadline for taxpayers, such as companies or firms, whose accounts are required to be audited is October 31.
• The due date for filing the tax audit report as well as the transfer pricing certificate is extended by a month till October 31 and November 30, respectively.
• For filing belated or revised return of income, the deadline is now set as January 31, 2022.
• The deadline for financial institutions to furnish the Statement of Financial Transaction or SFT report is extended till June 30 from May 31.