Giving a chance to tax assessees to come clean as well as regularise income tax returns, the Central Board of Direct Taxes has declared August 31 as the deadline for authenticating their income tax returns.
With a large number of electronically filed returns still pending with the income tax department due to non-filing of Income Tax Return (ITR) –V acknowledgement form, the CBDT has now said that taxpayers whose refunds and tax issues are pending for assessment years (AYs) 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 can authenticate their returns.
This can be done either through electronic verification by Aadhaar or bank account based facility on the income tax website or by posting a copy of the ITR-V to the Central Processing Centre, Bengaluru.
“This is the final opportunity being provided to the taxpayers to regularise their pending income tax returns pertaining to AYs 2009-10 till 2014-15 which were filed but were declared non-existing or have remained pending for verification,” said the CBDT.
It has, however, warned that this relaxation will not be available to all cases where the income tax department has already taken recourse for ensuring filing of tax return by the assessee after declaring the return as non-existing.