The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) previously extended, in consideration of the pandemic, the last date for filing ITR for income received in FY 2019-20 (Assessment Year 2020-21) to January 10, 2021. Typically, taxpayers are required to file ITR by July 31, but due to the pandemic, an exception was rendered this year. So, if you oversleep, you’ve still had a day to figure things out. Again, another distinction between missing last year’s ITR filing deadline and missing it – January 10 – this year is that this time you will have to pay a penalty of Rs 10,000, whereas last year when the fine for late ITR filing was just Rs 5000 within a few months of missing the deadline. With a host of repercussions, a pause in filing the ITR falls. A liability of Rs 5,000 for ITRs submitted after the due date is one of these. Nevertheless, if the ITR is filed after December 31 of the corresponding Appraisal Year, this liability doubles to Rs 10,000. Efficiently, all ITRs filed late will come with a penalty of Rs 10,000 for FY 2019-20, as the initial due date for regular ITRs has been extended to December 31, 2020.
- If the ITR due date is skipped by a taxpayer, his/her returns will be recorded late, and the refund balance will be issued late if any.
- For submitting the returns after the due date under section 234F, a late filing penalty will be applied. If the taxpayer files the return after the time limit, the penalty can be up to Rs 10,000. For a minor taxpayer whose income is below Rs 5 lakh, if the ITR is filed after the expiry of the timeline, the penalty will be Rs 1,000.
- In addition, the ITR filing default also makes one eligible to pay interest. As per section 234A of the Income Tax Act, until the date of payment of taxes, a taxpayer will have to pay punitive interest of 1 per cent per month on the amount of unpaid tax.
- Even after receiving notice u/s 142 and 148 of the Income Tax Act, if anyone deliberately does not pay tax, then he/she can face prosecution u/s 276CC of the Act.
- To have it measured against future years’ profits/gains, one can not carry forward the losses.
- If your income, though, is below the taxable cap, and though you file after the deadline, you won’t have to pay it. The minimum exemption cap is currently Rs 2.5 lakh for resident persons under the age of 60 years. The income of up to Rs 3 lakh is exempted from tax for persons aged between 60-80 years. The basic exemption cap for super senior citizens, i.e. 80 years of age and above, is up to Rs 5 lakh.
