Why income tax return filing deadline should be extended permanently

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

income tax return (ITR) filing deadline. This is because they essentially get 45 days to file their income tax returns even though the ITR forms are generally notified at the start of the financial year. There is a need to extend the deadline for filing income tax returns permanently to provide individuals sufficient time to file correctly.

Here is why.Firstly, even though the ITR forms are notified by the tax department at the start of the year or even prior to that, the utilities to file ITRs or online forms for ITR filing are usually enabled in mid-May or at the start of June. For instance, this year, ITR forms were notified in February, but the Excel utility was released in April and online ITR-1 form was enabled on May 20 with pre-filled data.Secondly, Form 16 and Form 16A are the TDS certificates that are essential documents for ITR filing. Form 16 is a TDS certificate issued by an employer with details of the total salary income paid and tax deducted on it in a financial year.

Similarly, Form 16A is a TDS certificate issued by banks and other financial institutions for TDS deducted on interest, dividend and other incomes.The last date to issue these TDS certificates is June 15. This due date was extended by 15 days by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in 2017. The 2017 notification extended the due date of filing TDS returns by employers, banks and other financial institutions from May 15 to May 31. Due to this extension, the last date to issue Form 16/16A became June 15 from May 31 earlier. This extension provided more time to file TDS returns, however, the subsequent time limit to file ITR was not extended. An individual which used to have almost 60 days to file their ITR now have 45 days to do the same.