The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has refuted media reports pertaining to reduction in numbers of Income Tax Returns (ITR) e-filed during Financial Year (FY) 2018-19 as compared to FY 2017-18. It said this is factually untrue, because the figures for FY18 and FY19 are not directly comparable. During FY18, out of a total of 6.74 crore ITRs which were e-filed, 5.47 crore ITRs were filed for Assessment Year (AY) 2017-18. In comparison, during FY19, a total of 6.68 crore ITRs were e-filed which included 6.49 crore ITRs of current AY 2018-19 marking an increase of almost 19%. This would imply that substantially larger number of taxpayers filed their ITRs electronically in the FY19 as compared to FY18.
During FY18, apart from the returns for the AY18, nearly 1.21 crore ITRs were filed for AY17. The balance number of ITRs filed for AY16 and prior AYs is 0.06 crore. In comparison, during FY19 only 0.14 crore ITRs for AY18 were filed. Thus, the apparent decrease in the number of ITRs filed during FY19 pertaining to earlier years was due to an amendment in Section 139(5) of the Income-tax Act, 1961 brought in vide Finance Act, 2017, with effect from April 01, 2018, which mandated that a revised return could be furnished only up to the end of the relevant Assessment Year.
As a result, only 0.14 crore ITRs pertaining to AY18 were filed during FY19 as these were the revised ITRs for the relevant AY which could only be filed due to change in law and no other ITR of any earlier AY could be filed in view of the amended provisions of law. It also stated that the number of paper ITRs for AY18 was only 9.2 lakh (1.5% of total ITRs filed) and the number of paper ITRs for AY19 is 4.8 lakh (0.6% of total ITRs filed).