If you missed filing updated ITR by March 31, can you go to jail?
economictimes.indiatimes.comupdated income tax return or ITR-U for FY 2020-21 (AY 2021-22) was March 31, 2024. This deadline is now over. If you have missed this deadline and there was any error in your previously filed ITR or there was any misreported income or under-reporting of income, now it cannot be fixed through the filing of ITR-U. It was the last opportunity for taxpayers to fix these errors by paying up to 50% penalty, however, now the income-tax department may catch them any day and impose up to 200% penalty.
According to Ankit Jain, partner, Ved Jain & Associates, a CA firm, «Once the ITR-U deadline is over, the option to make any further corrections are not available to the taxpayer.»
Can you go to jail for not filing ITR-U though being eligible?
In a recent case, Delhi High Court gave a judgment where a woman was sentenced to imprisonment on account of non-filing of income tax return (ITR). The lady was liable to file ITR but had failed to do so. «The tax authorities had sought the imprisonment as a means to deter other taxpayers from non-compliance. Under the tax laws, a person can be sentenced to imprisonment for deliberate acts of failure to file a return, concealment of income, making false statements, etc. So, a person who has filed his ITR but does not file an ITR-U cannot be imprisoned since filing of ITR-U is not mandatory. However, if any underreported income is discovered, the tax authorities may seek imprisonment for concealment of income,» says Jain.
According to Alay Razvi, Partner, Accord Juris LLP, a
