Income Tax Portal Glitches: Why should Due Dates suffer due to system delays

The Income Tax Department extended the due date to file the Income Tax Return (ITR) for the Finacial Year 2024-25. The Reason cited by Department for extension of due date was delay in system readiness and rollout of ITR utilities for Assessment Year (AY) 2025-26.

Non-release of ITR Utilities and Delay in notification of ITR Forms

It has been almost 2 months since the beginning of the new financial year, but the ITR Filing Utilities have still not been released. Infact this year, it was delay in notification of ITR Forms as well.

The Income Tax (I-T) Department notified ITR Form-1 (sahaj) and ITR Form-4 (sugam) on April 29, 2025. After these, ITR Form 3 was released on April 30, 2025. Later on, ITR Form 5 was released on May 2, 2025, and Form 6 on May 3, 2025. Finally ITR-7 was released on 9th of May.

Again, government has simply extended the due date, without intimating the exact date on which utility will be released.

Extension of One Due Date leads to extension of Other dates as well

The due date to file the tax audit is 30th September, and the Audit ITR is 31st October. There are high chances that the Due dates of Tax Audit and Transfer Pricing (TP) Audit, and ITRs for Taxpayers having Tax Audit and TP Audit will also be extended due to this action.

The government should announce a proactive extension on this matter to avoid chaos at a later stage.