Deadline Alert: Only One Week Left! Will ITR Due Date be Further Extended by CBDT?

Deadline Alert: Only One Week Left! Will ITR Due Date be Further Extended by CBDT?

The due date for filing the Income Tax Return (ITR) has already been extended by the Income Tax Department from July 31, 2025, to September 15, 2025, for the financial year 2024-25 (assessment year 2025-26). However, this extension is only applicable to the taxpayers liable to get their accounts audited; no extension has been made for audit cases as of now.

There is exactly only one week left; the ITR due date is just around the corner. According to the data collected from the Income Tax portal, from a total of 13.35 crore registered users, only 4.89 crore have finished filing their Income Tax Return (ITR) for the assessment year 2025-26 as of now. 4.63 crore returns have successfully been e-verified. However, among these verified returns, 3.35 crore have been processed. This means a major population of taxpayers are still due to file their ITRs. There are still more than 3 crore taxpayers gearing up to file their returns. The speed of filing returns is extremely unexpected this FY.

In the previous assessment year, 2024-25, a total of 7.28 crore income tax returns (ITRs) were filed as of July 31, 2024, and on the single day of the due date, i.e., July 31, 2024, approximately 70 lakh returns were filed, which indicates the number of taxpayers filing the ITR rapidly increased in the peak days of ITR filing.

There are several taxpayers, professionals, businesses, and tax associations who have recently highlighted their issues faced during filing their returns on social media platforms, like delays in utilities and return form availability, glitches in the income tax portal, the changed format of reporting for non-corporate entities, the timing of the festival season, the extension of the due date for non-audit cases, shortened time for audit work, overlap with other compliances, etc., urging the Finance Minister and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to further extend the due date to file ITR (Income Tax Return) and TAR (Tax Audit Report).

Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FKCCI), Chartered Accountants Association, Surat (CAAS), Bombay Chartered Accountants’ Society (BCAS), The Chandigarh Chartered Accountants Taxation Association (CCATAX), Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI), etc., all have tried approaching the finance minister and CBDT with their problems. However, no official announcement regarding the due date extension has been made yet. Therefore, taxpayers are advised to finish filing their ITRs before the due date and not rely on further extension, as it is not confirmed yet.