The All Odisha Tax Advocates Association (AOTAA) has sent a legal notice to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for not extending the deadline for filing Income Tax Return (ITR) for the assessment year 2021-2022. The AOTAA said that despite all the technical glitches in the new portal of the Income Tax Department, the CBDT did not extend the date for filing ITR and is now levying penalty under section 234F of the Income Tax Act 1961 on taxpayers who are late filing ITR.
According to a report in Economic Times, AOTAA in its legal notice to CBDT said, “Please note that after receipt of this letter, if your office will not extend the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns as well as Tax Audit Reports to 31st March 2022, then our association will be compelled to file a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against you in the Odisha High Court. In addition to the extension of the deadline, you will also have to pay the late fee collected from all taxpayers who filed ITR after 31st December 2021”
According to the legal notice, “The old portal of Income Tax Department was functioning well without any flaws and was also user friendly. However, despite this the Finance Ministry has asked Infosys Limited to develop a new portal from assessment year 2021-22. Also, as per the earlier directions of Hon’ble High Court, CBDT failed to upload the scheme of return form in the portal in time.”
Let us tell you that the last date for filing Income Tax Return (ITR) was 31 December 2021, which the government did not extend. However, before this, the government had extended its deadline twice, in July 2021 and September 2021. However, due to several technical glitches on the new e-filing portal, many taxpayers could not file their ITR on time.
AOTAA said in the legal notice, “This new portal has been designed in such a way that it takes maximum time to file and upload the return. On many occasions, the portal used to get stuck in the middle of filling the ITR form, causing heavy burden to the taxpayers.” There was inconvenience and till December 31, we and other tax professionals had to face lot of difficulties in filing the forms.