Govt sent 1 lakh notices for not filing income tax returns, misrepresentation of income: FM Nirmala Sitharaman

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₹50 lakh and they are expected to be cleared by the end of this fiscal. While addressing the 164th Income Tax Day the chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Nitin Gupta said that for the fiscal year 2022-23 more than 4 crore income tax returns (ITR) have been filed so far and the government has processed more than half of such ITRs, resulting in ₹80 lakh refunds. Nitin Gupta mentioned that the shortage of manpower in the income tax department is impeding the efforts to achieve better results.

The top officer urged the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to approve the cadre restructuring proposal as soon as possible. Direct tax collections which include personal income tax and corporate tax among others are making remarkable “strides" as the income tax department has collected ₹16.61 lakh crore in taxes during the 2022-23 fiscal which was 17.67% higher than last fiscal, the CBDT chairperson said. Nitin Gupta said that this is a testament to the hard work put in by our cadre that the tax collections crossed both budget and revised estimates set by the government for revenue collections.

"We are currently growing at the rate of 16 percent (for direct tax collection) over the last year. We had 7.78 crore income tax returns filed during the 2022-23 financial year and this was an increase of 6.5 percent over the previous year," the CBDT head said. He added that the income tax department is seriously working on the guidelines set by the government for the "quicker processing of returns and the speedy issue of refunds".