The
Central Board of Direct Taxes on Monday extended the linking of Aadhaar with
PAN (Permanent Account Number) till August 31.
The
income tax returns will be processed after the Aadhar-PAN linking, a release
said.
Under
pressure to push back the July 31 deadline for filing income tax returns due to
the inability of the online server to handle the traffic on the last day, the
Income Tax Department on Monday announced the extension of the deadline to
August 5.
“There
are some complaints that the taxpayers are not being able to log on to the
e-filing website of Income Tax Department or not being able to link Aadhaar
with PAN because of different names reflected in PAN and Aadhaar database,” the
Finance Ministry said in a statement. “While technical snags have been removed
already, the main reason for failure of people to log in is because of last
minute rush and panic in which those who have already logged in want to
continue for the entire period for fear of losing it.”
In
order to ease this situation, the government has decided to extend the return
filing deadline by five days to August 5.
“For
the purpose of e-filing return, it would be sufficient as of now to quote
Aadhaar or acknowledgement number for having applied for Aadhaar in e-filing
website,” the statement added. “The actual linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be
done subsequently, but any time before August 31, 2017. However, the returns
will not be processed until the linkage of Aadhaar with PAN is done.”
A
senior official of the department said the decision to extend the deadline
ending today was taken after a meeting of the revenue department and the
Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) was held in the Finance Ministry on
Monday.
The
department, till Sunday, had maintained that no extension would be given as
already over 2 crore returns have been received and no major glitches on the
portal had been detected.
But,
the situation changed on Monday and the extension was declared.
This
time, the linking of the Aadhaar number with the PAN (Permanent Account Number)
of a taxpayer has been made mandatory for filing of an ITR, beginning July 1.
The
department has also asked taxpayers to declare cash deposits made in bank
accounts aggregating to ₹2 lakh or more, post demonetisation between November
9-December 30 last year, in the ITRs.
The
ITRs to be filed by July 31 pertain to 2016-17 fiscal or assessment year
2017-18.
(With
inputs from PTI)
Source
: http://www.thehindu.com/
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