ITR Filings Surge To New High Of 7.28 Crore By July 31

The Income Tax Department on Friday announced that income tax returns reached a record high of over 7.28 crore by the July 31 deadline, marking a 7.5% increase from the previous fiscal.

For the assessment year 2024-25, more than 7.28 crore ITRs were filed by July 31, up 7.5% from the 6.77 crore returns filed by the same date in the assessment year 2023-24, according to the department's statement.

"Out of the total ITRs of 7.28 crore filed for AY24-25, 5.27 crore have been filed in the new tax regime compared to 2.01 crore ITRs filed in the old tax regime," it said.

This indicates that 72% of taxpayers have opted for the new tax regime, while only 28% continue to be in the old tax regime.

The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31, the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases, with over 69.92 lakh ITRs having been filed on a single day.

The department also received 58.57 lakh ITRs from first-time filers, a fair indication of the widening of the tax base.

In a historic first, ITRs (ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the financial year i.e. on April 1, 2024.

Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs filed for AY24-25, 45.77% of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.34 crore), 14.93% are ITR-2 (1.09 crore), 12.5% are ITR-3 (91.10 lakh), 25.77% are ITR-4 (1.88 crore) and 1.03% are ITR-5 to ITR-7 (7.48 lakh).

Over 43.82% of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the remaining have been filed using offline ITR utilities, it said.

During the peak filing period, the e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic, providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filing of ITRs. On July 31 alone, successful logins stood at 3.2 crore.

The process of e-verification is important to commence the processing of ITRs and to issue refunds, if any, it said.

It is encouraging to note that over 6.21 crore ITRs have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar-based OTP (93.56%). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 2.69 crore ITRs for the AY24-25 have been processed (43.34%) till July 31.

Over 91.94 lakh challans have been received through TIN 2.0 payment system in the month of July (for AY24-25), while total number of challans filed through TIN 2.0 since April 1, 2024 stands at 1.64 crore (for AY24-25).

The e-filing helpdesk team has handled approximately 10.64 lakh queries from taxpayers during the year up to July 31, supporting the taxpayers proactively during the peak filing period.

While expressing its gratitude to tax professionals and taxpayers for their support in compliances in filing of ITRs and forms, the statement said, taxpayers are also requested to verify their unverified ITRs if any, within 30 days of filing the ITR.

The department also urged taxpayers, who for any reason, missed filing their ITR within the due date, to complete their filing expeditiously.

The statement said a lot of emphasis was provided to educate taxpayers about old and new tax regimes. FAQs and educational videos on the same were designed and uploaded on the e-filing portal, it said. Focused outreach campaigns were carried out on social media to encourage taxpayers to file their ITRs early.

Along with this, it said, unique creative campaigns were also carried out on different platforms. Informational videos in 12 vernacular languages, apart from English and Hindi, were displayed on digital platforms.

Outdoor campaigns were also carried out. Such concerted efforts led to fruitful results with increased number of filings.

(With Inputs From PTI)