ITR Filing breaks all records with over 72.42 lakh ITRs filed on a single day

The Department thanks taxpayers and tax professionals for their prompt compliance, which caused a rise in ITR filings and set a new record for the number of ITRs filed in a single day.

The rise in ITR filing peaked on July 31, 2022, with over 72.42 lakh ITRs being submitted on that day alone (the deadline for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases). ITRs for AY 22–23 as a whole have been filed a total of 5.83 crore times as of July 31, 2022. The e-filing portal also set further records on July 31, 2022, including the greatest rate of ITR filing per second (570 at 4:29:30 pm), highest rate per minute (9573 at 7:44 pm), and highest rate per hour (5,17,030 between 5 and 6 pm).

The first 1 crore ITRs for AY 22–23 were only submitted on July 7, 2022, demonstrating how much slower the early pace of e-filing was. By the 22nd of July 2022, there were 2.48 crore ITRs filed, a little increase in the rate. The government’s announcement that there would be no deadline extension caused a boom in ITR filing; by July 25, 2022, 3 crore ITRs had been submitted. On July 31, 2022, 72.42 lakh ITRs had been submitted by day’s end, breaking all prior records (maximum being 49 lakh ITRs in 2019). More than 5.13 billion ITRs have been filed in July 2022 alone.

50 percent of the 5.83 billion ITRs submitted for AY 2022–23 are ITR-1 (2.93 crore), 11.5 percent are ITR-2 (67 lakh), 10.9 percent are ITR-3 (63.35 lakh), 26 percent are ITR-4 (1.54 crore), and ITR-5 to 7 are the remaining percentages (5.5 lakh). Since July 7th, 2022, through July 31st, 2022, there have been over 3.31 crore ITRs filed during business hours (9 AM–6 PM), accounting for 58.77 percent of all ITRs filed. The online ITR form on the portal was used to file more than 47% of these ITRs, and the offline software utilities were used to create the remaining ITRs, which were then submitted.

Many taxpayers checked their financial records by comparing the information on their Annual Information Statements (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summaries (TIS). More than 5.03 crore taxpayers saw or downloaded their AIS, which indicates a strong consumption rate for AIS/TIS data.

This year, a sizable chunk of the ITR-1’s data was already prefilled with information about wage, interest, and dividend income, making it simpler for taxpayers to comply. Apart from this information, property details for rental income, brought forward losses, and MAT credit were also pre-filled for other ITRs 2, 3, and 4 to make compliance more easier for taxpayers.

For the Department to start processing the ITR and to provide refunds, if any, the procedure of e-verification by Aadhaar OTP and other ways is crucial. It is gratifying to learn that 3.96 billion returns have undergone electronic verification, more than 3.71 billion of which used an OTP based on Aadhaar (94 percent ). More than 3.01 crore ITRs for AY 2022–23 have been processed from the e-verified ITRs (75 percent ). In a number of cases, taxpayers have received their processing notifications minutes or hours after filing and verifying their ITRs.

Additionally, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Federal Bank have implemented the new tax payment option (TIN 2.0) on the e-filing platform. Till July 31st, 2022, these banks had received around 73,910 challans totaling Rs. 518.5 crore.

Up to July 31st of 2022, the e-filing Helpdesk team assisted with and answered more than 1.45 lakh inquiries. A total of 1,05,800 calls were answered in the final week of July 2022, with the most calls (18,341) coming in on the 26th. Helpdesk personnel also assisted in resolving complaints made via the Department’s Twitter account by proactively contacting taxpayers and stakeholders and resolving any difficulties almost immediately.

The Department expresses its appreciation once more for the assistance in prompt compliances and urges all taxpayers to e-verify their ITRs as soon as possible. Additionally, the Department exhorts taxpayers who for any reason missed the deadline to finish filing right away.