Filing of Income Tax returns turned into a messy affair on Monday as the server http:// incometaxindiaefiling .gov.in/ crashed and was unreachable for hours leaving citizens and accountants fretting and fuming.
Later, faced with flak on social media, the Government on Monday announced that the date for filing returns has been extended till August 5. The Government also extended the date for linking of Aadhaar with PAN card to end of August with a caveat.
“Even this deadline of August 5 is not enough to file the returns. Though the Finance Ministry gave sufficient time for linking Aadhaar with PAN card for filing returns there are many people who haven’t done it. Today, I had to file returns of 50 people but I have been able to do so only for two persons by 4 p.m.,” said Chandrasekhar Gokhale, a chartered accountant from Basheerbagh area. A similar story about pending IT returns was narrated by other CAs as well.
Tweets sent out by tax payers and chartered accountants about the efiling website of Income Tax Department. (Right) Screen shot of http:// incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in announcing extension of last date on Monday.
According to other auditors, even Saturday was nightmarish with slowdown of the website. “I went to a CA on Friday at 11 a.m. to register my details in the e-filing portal for generating the activation link and the one time password, the prerequisite for e-verifying IT returns. However, I received the activation link and the OTP in my mail nearly 20 hours later at 6.59 a.m. on Saturday. The CA firm attributed the delay due to overloading of the IT Department servers. Same was the experience on Monday, when I went to the CA’s office to file my returns. They were not able to log-in to the e-filing portal,” shared C. Shekhar.
On Monday at 5.20 p.m., hours before the deadline for e-filing, the Income Tax Department tweeted: “To facilitate e-filing of IT Returns, extension of five days has been given i.e. upto 5th August, 2017.”
The IT Department also tweaked some of the norms about linking of PAN Card Number with Aadhaar Number. It is allowing citizens to quote the Aadhaar number or the acknowledgement number of Aadhaar application in the IT returns. In tandem with the leeway, the department has also extended the date for linking of Aadhaar with PAN card to end of August: “Actual linking of PAN with Aadhaar can be done subsequently before August 31. ITRs will be processed after the linkage of Aadhaar with PAN,” it said.
“The linking of Aadhaar with PAN number is proving to be a problem as even a slight variation of date of birth or spelling in the two databases is resulting in rejection. Luckily, this year there is no penalty for delayed filing of IT returns. But, from next financial year, citizens who delay filing will have to pay a penalty of ₹ 10,000,” said Mr. Gokhale.
