Taxpayers filing their Income Tax Return regularly are now getting intimation from the Income Tax Department in case their returns of income are not filed yet. Moreover, the intimations even contain the status of filing of ITR for an assessee.

For example, if a taxpayer had started filing his/her return of income through the online mode on the site, but abandoned the process for any reason, the intimation sent to him/her would say, “We have noticed that your ITR for AY 2022-23 is still in draft stage. Please complete the ITR, submit and e-verify it.”

The filing of ITR of a person may remain pending for various reasons – like a person may simply forget to file his/her return of income, or may leave the filing process in between due to want of adequate information. Moreover, once the due date is over, people tend to become casual to complete the process of filing their ITR.Belated ITR filing for AY 2022-23: Last Date, Penalty and Why You Should Not Delay Income Tax Return

Filing of ITR is necessary for a person having an annual income of over Rs 2.5 lakh (the exemption limit is Rs 3 lakh for senior citizens and Rs 5 lakh for super senior citizens) or if any tax is deducted at source (TDS) from any income even if the total income is below the prescribed exemption limit.

Apart from a few exemptions, most taxpayers need to file their ITR online. Even for filing ITR online, taxpayers get two options after logging in to the income tax portal – by downloading, filling and uploading an ITR utility file or by directly providing the required information on the portal after choosing the online filing option.

Mere submitting the ITR online doesn’t complete the filing process, but a taxpayer needs to verify his/her return as well. The verification may be done either offline or online.

Offline verification may be done by sending the signed ITR-V to the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) in Bangalore.

The online verification or e-verification may be done through any of the following processes –

• Using Aadhaar OTP
• Using EVC generated through bank account, net banking or demat account
• Using Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)

To complete a filing process successfully, an ITR filed before the due date may be verified within 120 days from the date of filing. The time limit has been reduced to 30 days, where the e-filing of a return is done after the due date of July 31, 2022.