CBDT said in a statement that the last date for making payments under the Vivad Se Vishwas scheme without additional amount has been extended from 31 August to 30 September. However, the due date for making payment with additional amount remains unchanged at 31 October. The scheme has been a huge success so far with disputes getting settled in over 1.33 lakh pleas, Mint had reported on 7 April quoting official data.It allows taxpayers to pay only the principal tax amount and enjoy waiver of interest and penalty. It covers direct tax cases barring those related to wealth tax, securities transaction tax (STT), commodity transaction tax (CTT) and the tax on online advertisements charged by the income tax department—equalization levy.
In a separate statement, CBDT said due date for electronic filing of forms in various cases have been extended considering the difficulties reported by taxpayers and other stakeholders in electronic filing. The move comes in the context of the new tax filing portal developed by Infosys Ltd. running into glitches immediately after its launch in June.
As per this, the due date for filing the equalisation levy statement by businesses for FY21 has got extended from 30 June to 31 August. The due date for quarterly statement to be filed by authorised dealers regarding foreign remittances made in the June quarter has been extended from 31 August to 31 December. The due date for filing the statement for the September quarter by these dealers has also been extended from 15 October to 31 December.
Also, Sovereign Wealth Funds can now report their investments into India for the June quarter by 30 November instead of 30 September. For reporting their investments in the September quarter, they have time till 31 December. The earlier due date was 31 October. The same extension of due dates has been given to pension funds too for the June and September quarters.
Experts said that due to the technical glitches in the new Income tax portal, taxpayers have been facing lot of problems in meeting compliance timelines under various provisions, be it filing of equalization levy return, making application for registration of charitable trusts and other institutions for income tax exemption, quarterly statements by authorized dealers in respect of foreign remittances or filing of necessary intimation by SWFs. The due dates for all such compliances have been extended by the government, explained Shailesh Kumar, Partner, Nangia & Co LLP.
“This extension will provide the much needed relief to taxpayers for making compliance and will also save them from penal consequences of not being able to comply with the earlier timelines, due to technical glitches in the IT portal," said Kumar.
