Income Tax Portal: Despite Glitches, 76.2 Lakh Taxpayers Filed Returns Online, Ministry Says

Union Ministry of Finance Says they are continuously engaged with Infosys, the vendor managing the portal, to ensure a smooth filing experience to taxpayers.

New Delhi: The Income Tax Return (ITR) filing has increased to 3.2 lakh per day in September, and 1.19 crore ITRs have been filed in all for the assessment year 2021-22, despite glitches and difficulties encountered by users on the e-filing portal of the government, the Union Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday.

Of the 1.19 crore ITRs filed so far, 76.2 lakh taxpayers have used the online portal to file the returns.

The Income Tax department’s e-filing portal was launched on June 7 this year, and taxpayers and professionals using the portal have reported glitches and difficulties ever since. The ministry said it has been regularly monitoring the resolution of issues with Infosys Ltd, the vendor managing the project for the government.

“A number of technical issues are being progressively addressed and there has been a positive trend reflected in the statistics of the various filings on the portal,” the ministry said in its statement. 

According to the I-T department, over 8.83 crore unique taxpayers have logged in till September 7, with a daily average of over 15.55 lakh this month. 

“It is encouraging to note that over 94.88 lakh ITRs have also been e-verified, which is necessary for processing by the Centralized Processing Center,” the ministry said. 

Of these 94.88 lakh ITRs, 7.07 lakh returns have been processed.

The ministry said the I-T department is “continuously engaged with Infosys to ensure a smooth filing experience to taxpayers”.

14.59 lakh e-PAN Issued 

The ministry also said taxpayers have been able to view over 8.74 lakh notices issued by the income tax department under the Faceless Assessment/Appeal/Penalty proceedings, and over 2.61 lakh responses have been filed. 

On a daily basis in September, it said, an average of 8,285 notices for e-proceedings are being issued and 5,889 responses are being filed.

Stating that over 10.6 lakh Statutory Forms have also been submitted, the ministry said. These include 7.86 lakh TDS statements, 1.03 lakh Form 10A for registration of trusts or institutions, 0.87 lakh Form 10E for arrears of salary, 0.10 lakh Form 35 for Appeal. 

Nearly 66.44 lakh taxpayers have done their Aadhaar-PAN linking, and the department has allotted over 14.59 lakh e-PAN. The month of September has seen over 50,000 taxpayers availing of both these facilities on a daily basis, the ministry said.