Deadline for e-filing of tax returns extended
01 Aug 2012
The government on Tuesday extended the deadline for filing income tax returns for the assessment year 2012-13 by a month to 31 August 2012 in view of the massive power failure in northern, eastern and north-eastern India on Monday and Tuesday. The earlier deadline was 31 July 2012.
Apart from the power failure, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said it was also extending the deadline due to the fact that e-filing has now been made mandatory for individuals and Hindu Undivided Families (HUF).
''This has been done in respect of assesses who are liable to file such returns by 31 July 2012 as per provisions of section 139 of Income Tax Act, 1961,'' CBDT said in a statement.
Under Rule 12 of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, if the total income of an individual or HUF exceeds Rs10 lakh in the previous year, such returns must mandatorily be filed electronically, starting assessment year 2012-13.
In a separate announcement, CBDT also relaxed the mandatory e-filing of returns for agents of non-resident Indians and 'private discretionary trusts' due to shortcomings in the e-filing software.
The board said that agents of non-residents are facing difficulties in e-filing returns of NRIs in cases where an NRI has more than one agent, or where the agent has more than one NRI client. Such situations, it said, are not covered by the existing e-filing software which functions on the principle of one assessee-one-PAN-one return.
As on March 31 2012, 19,684,592 taxpayers had registered for e-filing.
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