Date for filing income tax returns extended to March 15, 2022

The income tax Department has enabled the tax audit utility form on its portal for financial year 2019-20 and 2020-21. Under the I-T Act, taxpayers are required to get their accounts audited if the sales, turnover or gross receipts of business exceed ₹10 crore, while in case of professionals, the limit was over ₹50 lakh in 2020-21 (AY 2021-22).

The last date for filing the tax audit report for the 2020-21 fiscal is January 15, 2022.

For fiscal 2019-20 i.e. AY 2020-21, limit was ₹5 crore for businesses and ₹50 lakh for professionals and due date for original tax audit report was January 15, 2021.

However, companies can still file the revised tax audit report for that year to rectify errors.

Nangia & Co LLP Director, Audit & Assurance, Shalu Kedia said the corporate assessees did not want to wait until due date which is falling in January for tax audit filing for AY 2021-22 can now proceed with their tax audit filings followed by corporate tax returns for Assessment Year (AY) 2021-22 (pertaining to fiscal 2020-21).

"Many of the corporate assessees were also waiting for the utility to go live as they had to revise their tax audit reports for AY 2020-21 (FY 2019-20) to rectify errors in original tax audits reports and file a suitable response against demands arising on account of mismatches in tax audit reports and tax returns for AY 2020-21," Kedia said.

AMRG & Associates Director – Direct & International Tax Om Rajpurohit said after prolonged postponement, the CBDT has finally enabled the Tax Audit utility on October 26.

"However, this delay has resulted in an unnecessary interest burden for the taxpayers who usually finalize their tax due and file their tax return on time once the tax audit report is filed. Though, for such a class of taxpayers who are yet to start their ITR filing process owing to extended due dates, this is a welcome step," Rajpurohit added.

AKM Global, Director-Tax and Regulatory, Sandeep Sehgal said "since the due date for filing of tax audit stands extended to January 15, 2022, this will allow sufficient time to auditors and taxpayers to ensure orderly filing, and also identify and report any glitches encountered during the process."

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