In the light of recent changes introduced in the Form 16, the Salary TDS Certificate, and Form 24Q (Salary TDS Return), the Government is likely to extend the due date for filing the income tax returns for this year.

“The CBDT has extended the due date of filing of Form 24Q, i.e., TDS return in respect of salary for the financial year 2018-19 from May 31, 2019 to June 30, 2019,” Naveen Wadhwa, chartered accountant and manager, Taxmann, told The Economic Times. He added that the due date was extended considering the latest changes made by the tax department in Form 24Q and to redress genuine hardship of employers in timely filing of TDS return in revised format of Form 24Q.

Recently, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex direct tax body, had also recently issued a notification extending the deadline for employers to issue Form 16 to their employees. Since the latter was extended to June 30, the due date of issue of Form 16 has also been extended by 10 days to July 10.

Due to the above recent changes, the employees would only get 21 days to file their returns which may not be time enough for many tax payers. Considering this, the Government may postpone the due date. From last year, the late filing of the ITR now incurs a maximum penalty of Rs 10,000.

In order to align the TDS certificate format with recently notified ITR forms applicable for assessment year 2019-20, in April the CBDT had notified the Income-Tax (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2019, to introduce changes in Form 16 and Form 24Q with effect from May 12, 2019.

Recently, the income tax department has also made it mandatory for the employer to download and issue Part-B of Form-16 from the TRACES portal only.