Certain ITR filing forms still not up on the income tax website

AHMEDABAD: With effect from April 1, 2018, if a taxpayer fails to file income tax (I-T) return by the July 31 deadline, he or she will be liable to pay a penalty for late filing ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. However, even 46 days after the financial year 2017-18 ended, the software utility needed to file or upload certain I-T returns is not available on the income tax department website, say chartered accountants based in Ahmedabad. As a result, they are unable to file the I-T returns of their clients. “At a time when the government is imposing hefty penalties for late filing of income tax returns, the I-T department should ensure that software utilities for uploading the returns are made available on the department’s website, latest by the first week of April. It has been 45 days so far and yet, there only ITR 1, 2 and 4 available on the site,” said Hiren Vakil, past president, Income Tax Bar Association.

Vakil said, “With the rest of the ITR software utilities being unavailable, which primarily concern businesspersons, people are unable to file returns. This will only add to the rush on the servers in June and July, when servers are often slow.”

Upendra Shah, a garment manufacturer of Ahmedabad, said, “I had submitted my father’s Form-16 along with other documents to my chartered accountant last month. He is the proprietor of our company. However, his return has still not been filed. We can’t go abroad even if we want to, till our return is filed, to address any discrepancy if any.”


Several other chartered accountants have also indicated that a slew of Form-16 documents of their clients are lying idle at their offices. “We have Form-16 and other documents from some 30-35 clients. Yet, in absence of ITR utilities on the department’s website, we are unable to file returns,” said Dhruv Zaveri, a city-based chartered accountant.

When contacted, I-T department officials claimed ignorance. “This has not been brought to our notice yet. We will look into the matter,” said A K Jaiswal, principal chief commissioner of income tax – Gujarat.