ITR Filing For FY 2024-25: Facing Glitches? You're Not Alone, Experts Call For Deadline Extension To File ITR

For many taxpayers, this income tax return filing season (for the financial year 2024-25) is not going as smoothly as previous years. As the extended ITR filing deadline of September 15 is nearing, both taxpayers and professionals are running into familiar roadblocks such as sluggish portal, unstable utilities, and missing data.

Many Chartered accountants as well as industry bodies are pressing the government to extend the filing deadline stating how this compressed filing window is becoming a bottleneck for them. The tax authorities released ITR filing utilities quite later this year which had initially added onto the current deadline extension and has put taxpayers way behind their filing schedules.

ITR Filing Issues

Last week, frustration spilt over on social media after users reported being unable to download the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS), both of which are mandatory and crucial for accurate return filing. Even when the documents became available, the e-filing portal itself slowed to a crawl, with session failures and timeouts reported at peak hours.

"Taxpayers and professionals are currently unable to access AIS & TIS on the IT portal… @IncomeTaxIndia should communicate via Twitter to inform users about the error and provide an estimated timeline," Mumbai-based chartered accountant Chirag Chauhan posted on X.

What has added to the pressure is the increase in detail required in the new ITR forms. Claiming house rent allowance, for instance, now requires filling in the landlord's PAN and address, while insurance deductions need policy numbers. These changes, though aimed at tightening compliance, have doubled the time taken to prepare returns, professionals say.

CA Himank Singla took to X to urge the government not just to extend the ITR deadline but also other key dates, including tax audits, GST annual filings, and company law audits. "These should be announced well in advance to prevent last-minute chaos," he wrote, pointing to how the delayed release of utilities has disrupted the entire compliance calendar.

The criticism has also come formally from industry bodies as well. The Gujarat Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) has submitted a representation to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), underlining that several key utilities were released late. ITR-5 was only made available on August 9, while utilities for ITR-6 were released only last week.

With deadlines for audit cases fixed on September 30, businesses and tax professionals argue that the short gap makes it impossible to complete filings accurately.

Other than the delay in utilities, experts have also cited recurring technical problems as a sore point. For instance, many users have flagged system errors while uploading ITRs or tax audit reports. In case of mismatches in AIS, TIS and Form 26A data, many have complained that the reconciliation process has become unnecessarily time-consuming, especially when data for the same PAN throws up mismatched figures.

The larger worry is that these issues are not new. In a normal year, utilities are released by April, giving taxpayers months to prepare. This time, the late rollout has already eaten into the filing window, leaving little room for error.