Physical Filing of TAR not possible: CBDT to Gujarat High Court

A writ application has been filed by the Southern Gujarat Income Tax Bar Association, Surat seeking relief of Tax Audit due date extension, Non Levy of interest u/s 234A, allowing filing of Tax Audit Report [TAR] and Income Tax Return [ITR] in physical form.

In this matter during the court proceeding, there was a discussion on the possibility of filing Tax Audit Report [TAR] & Income Tax return [ITR] physically.

As per the Central Board of Direct Taxes [CBDT], physical filing is not possible as Computer Assisted Scrutiny Selection [CASS] would fail if the ITR and TAR are allowed to file Physically and this would be a disaster.

To this, the Honorable Gujarat High Court said that the court understands that there are technical glitches on the Income Tax Portal and CBDT cannot run away from that fact. Here CBDT is confident that the Portal glitches will be taken care of. The court wants to know how the CBDT proposes to take care of these glitches.

Further, the court said if any taxpayer faced difficulties in uploading TAR, the problem should be attended to within 48 hours. This affidavit should be filed by the highest authority with Gujarat High Court on record within 48 hours.

The Court further added that even on the new date, if the same problem persists, then the court will provide an extension from 15th Feb 2022 to 15th March 2022.