New Delhi, Aug 2 (FN Agency) Hitting a new record, more than 6.77 crore income tax returns (ITRs) were filed for assessment year 2023–24 till the due date of July 31, 2023, registering a 16.1% jump over the previous year. “The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31, 2023 (the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases), with over 64.33 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day, i.e., on July 31, 2023, the Income Tax Department said on Tuesday. Out of the 6.77 crore ITRs filed for AY 2023–24, 49.18% are ITR-1 (3.33 crore), 11.97% are ITR-2 (81.12 lakh), 11.13% are ITR-3 (75.40 lakh), 26.77% are ITR-4 (1.81 crore), and 0.94% are ITR-5 to 7 (6.40 lakh). Over 46% of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal, and the balance have been filed using offline ITR utilities.
As per the data released today, 5.63 crore returns were e-verified, with the bulk of them (94%) verified using an Aadhaar-based OTP (94%). “Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 3.44 crore ITRs for AY 2023–24 have been processed (61%) by July 31, 2023,” said the tax department. A large number of taxpayers did their due diligence by comparing the data on their financial transactions by viewing their Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS). “A substantial portion of the data for ITR-1, 2, 3, and 4 was already prefilled with data pertaining to salary, interest, dividend, personal information, tax payment, including TDS-related information, brought forward losses, MAT credit, etc. to further ease compliance for taxpayers,” the tax department said.