New Delhi, Jul 2: If you are one of them who is perturbed and rushing to make last-minute investments for tax saving, then take a pause as the Income Tax (I-T) department on Thursday extended the deadline for tax saving investments/payments for the financial year 2019-20 up to July 31. Due to unique circumstances amid Coronavirus pandemic, the I-T department on a tweet said “Tax Saving Investments/Payments for FY 2019-20 can be made up to 31st July, 2020.”



It means that the deadline for making various investments for claiming deductions under the Income Tax Act has been extended by a month. The investments include section 80C (for life insurance (LIC), public provident fund (PPF), national savings certificate (NSC) equity-linked saving scheme (ELSS) and so on), 80D (for medical insurance), 80G (for donations) for 2019-20.

In order to provide relief to common man, the government also extended the deadline for filing of the income tax returns for FY 2018-19 by a month to July 31, 2020, and the deadline for linking Aadhaar with PAN till March 31, 2021.

Along with this, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) had also extended the due date for the filing of the income tax return for 2019-20 to November 30, 2020.

All the above extensions have been given to offer some relief to taxpayers since the coronavirus pandemic has affected the economy and the common man badly. The government has implemented a nationwide lockdown in the last week of March after which the economy took a hit as economic activity came to a halt. Many taxpayers may have missed the earlier deadlines to invest in the tax-saving schemes because of the lockdown.