New record of over 7.28 cr income-tax returns filed: Tax dept

New Delhi: Income tax returns (ITRs) touched a new record of over 7.28 crore, 7.5 per cent higher compared to previous fiscal, by the July 31 deadline, the income tax department said on Friday.

The total number of ITRs for assessment year 2024-25 filed till July 31, 2024 is more than 7.28 crore, which is 7.5 per cent higher than the total ITRs for AY 2023-24 (6.77 crore) filed till July 31, 2023, the department said in a statement.

"Out of the total ITRs of 7.28 crore filed for AY 2024-25, 5.27 crore have been filed in the new tax regime compared to 2.01 crore ITRs filed in the old tax regime," it said.

Thus, about 72 per cent of taxpayers have opted for the new tax regime, while 28 per cent continue to be in the old tax regime.

The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31, 2024 (the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases), with over 69.92 lakh ITRs having been filed on a single day.

The department also received 58.57 lakh ITRs from first-time filers, a fair indication of the widening of the tax base.

In a historic first, ITRs (ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the Financial Year i.e. on April 1, 2024.

Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs filed for A.Y. 2024-25, 45.77 per cent of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.34 crore), 14.93 per cent are ITR-2 (1.09 crore), 12.5 per cent are ITR-3 (91.10 lakh), 25.77 per cent are ITR-4 (1.88 crore) and 1.03 per cent are ITR-5 to ITR-7 (7.48 lakh).

Over 43.82 per cent of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the remaining have been filed using offline ITR utilities, it said.

During the peak filing period, the e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic, providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filing of ITRs. On July 31, 2024 alone, successful logins stood at 3.2 crore.

The process of e-verification is important to commence the processing of ITRs and to issue refunds, if any, it said.

It is encouraging to note that over 6.21 crore ITRs have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar-based OTP (93.56 per cent).

Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 2.69 crore ITRs for the A.Y. 2024-2025 have been processed (43.34 per cent) till July 31, 2024.

Over 91.94 lakh challans have been received through TIN 2.0 payment system in the month of July, 2024 (for AY 2024-25), while total number of challans filed through TIN 2.0 since April 1, 2024 stands at 1.64 crore (for AY 2024-25).

The e-filing helpdesk team has handled approximately 10.64 lakh queries from taxpayers during the year up to July 31, supporting the taxpayers proactively during the peak filing period.

While expressing its gratitude to tax professionals and taxpayers for their support in compliances in filing of ITRs and forms, the statement said, taxpayers are also requested to verify their unverified ITRs if any, within 30 days of filing the ITR.

The department also urged taxpayers, who for any reason, missed filing their ITR within the due date, to complete their filing expeditiously.

The statement said a lot of emphasis was provided to educate taxpayers about old and new tax regimes.

FAQs and educational videos on the same were designed and uploaded on the e-filing portal, it said.

Focussed outreach campaigns were carried out on social media to encourage taxpayers to file their ITRs early.

Along with this, it said, unique creative campaigns were also carried out on different platforms. Informational videos in 12 vernacular languages, apart from English and Hindi, were displayed on digital platforms.

Outdoor campaigns were also carried out. Such concerted efforts led to fruitful results with increased number of filings.