Deadline for filing of the Income Tax Returns (ITR), for the assessment year 2020-21, by individuals has been extended by 10 days to January 10, 2021. The earlier deadline to file the tax ITR was December 31, 2020. Due date for those accounts which are to be audited and deadline for companies has also been extended by 15 days to February 15, 2021.

Income Tax Department in a release issued on Wednesday mentioned that taxpayers are facing challenges in meeting compliances due to COVID-19, hence the deadline has been extended.


The government has also extended the due date for filing annual returns for the FY 2019-20 under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, to February 28.

Generally, the deadline for ITR filing for individuals is July 31 every year. Given the circumstances arising due to pandemic, this deadline was extended to November 30 and then to December 31 and now has been further pushed to January 10, 2021.

Nearly 4.54 crore tax returns for 2019-20 fiscal have been filed till December 29. In a tweet on Wednesday, the Income Tax department said, "more than 4.54 crore Income Tax Returns for AY 2020-21 have already been filed till 29th of December, 2020."

The data released by the tax department showed that over 2.52 crore ITR-1 have been filed till December 29, 2020, lower than the 2.77 crore filed till August 29, 2019.