Odisha Tax Advocates Association Submits Representation to Finance Minister for Tax Audit Report Filing Extension

The members of the Odisha Tax Advocates Association (AOTAA) have submitted a representation to the Hon’ble Finance Minister of India, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, citing the following difficulties:

• Technical Errors: The association mentioned that many stakeholders are facing technical glitches in the portal, such as system errors, timeouts and discrepancies between Form No. 26AS, AIS and TIS. Apart from this, there are regular schema updates, validation errors, and portal downtime. This wastes the time of the taxpayer in revalidating each updated schema. Sometimes the portal rejects the return without giving enough information. These issues cause anxiety and panic among the taxpayers.

• Due Date of Filing ITR for Non-Audit Case: The association also highlighted that the due date of ITR filing for salaried individuals and non-audited businesses was extended due to the enactment of the Income Tax Act 2025 and changes in the schema of ITR forms. Many high courts have ordered the CBDT to release the ITR forms at the beginning of the year. However, this year, the forms were not released on time, affecting the timely compliance.

• Weather-Related Issues: They also pointed out that the bad weather and flood situation affected the electricity supply, internet connectivity, and other disruptions, due to which tax professionals are unable to file ITR and TAR for their assessees within the allowed time.

• Festivals Affecting ITR and TAR Filing:  Major festivals like Ganesh Puja, Durga Puja, Laxmi Puja, Kali Puja, Navratri, Dussehra, etc. are affecting staff availability in offices.

• Revised Formats ICAI: The ICAI has introduced new formats for financial statements (AY 2025-26), for non-corporate assessees, which require extra time for the preparation of balance sheets, trading, profit and loss accounts, etc.

• Other Compliance Burden: Tax professionals also need to file GST and other returns in September, apart from filing ITR. This adds more workload on them.

They requested the Finance Minister to extend the due dates as follows: