Representative image showing a booklet with tax written on it
Credit: iStock Photo
New Delhi:The number of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed in the current financial year till the due date of July 31 increased to 7.28 crore, which is the highest ever and 7.5 per cent more than 6.77 crore returns filed during the corresponding period of the last year, data released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) showed on Friday.
Out of the total returns filed so far in the current financial year, 72% of the taxpayers have opted for the new tax regime.
The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31, which was the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases. Over 69.92 lakh ITRs were filed on July 31.
Out of the total ITRs filed so far, 58.57 lakh are from first time filers. As per the Ministry of Finance this is a “fair indication of widening of tax base.”
According to the Finance Ministry, the Income Tax Department took some proactive measures to facilitate timely filing of ITRs.
“In a historic first, ITRs (ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the Financial Year i.e. on April 1, 2024. The ITR-3 and ITR-5 were also released earlier in comparison with the preceding financial years. A lot of emphasis was provided to educate taxpayers about Old and New tax regimes,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs filed for the Assessment Year 2024-25, 45.77 per cent of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.34 crore), 14.93 per cent are ITR-2 (1.09 crore), 12.50 per cent are ITR-3 (91.10 lakh), 25.77 per cent are ITR-4 (1.88 crore) and 1.03 per cent are ITR-5 to ITR-7 (7.48 lakh).
Over 43.82 per cent of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance have been filed using offline ITR utilities.
Over 6.21 crore ITRs were e-verified by July 31, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP (93.56 per cent). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 2.69 crore ITRs for the AY 2024-2025 have been processed (43.34 per cent). E-verification is important to commence the processing of ITRs and to issue refunds, if any.