Filing an Income Tax Return (ITR) is a vital part of fulfilling your tax obligations, and one must be well aware of the deadlines for filing ITR. For taxpayers not requiring audit, the due date to file ITR for Financial Year 2023-24 (Assessment Year 2024-25) was July 31, 2024. In case the deadline has passed, one can still submit a belated return, and this deadline is December 31, 2024. The filing needs to be done before that date in order to avoid penalty charges as well as interest accumulation. Stay updated with the rules for filing taxes to prevent any hurdles.

All taxpayers, however, have the same deadline for filing a revised return and a belated return. Many taxpayers are unaware of the penalties they may incur if they fail to file the revised and belated returns for FY 2023-24 by the deadline of December 31, 2024.

Consequences of Missing the ITR Filing Deadline

Fines for filing delayed: There is a Rs 5,000 penalty for taxpayers who file their taxes after the deadline. The fine is Rs 1,000 for anyone whose income is less than Rs 5 lakh. The purpose of this penalty is to incentivise prompt adherence to tax reporting deadlines.

Interest: Under Section 234A, taxpayers who owe unpaid taxes will be charged interest at 1% per month until the tax is paid. This extra expense can add up rapidly, raising the overall amount due.

Loss of exemptions: Under the old tax system, filing a late return resulted in the loss of exemptions. The new tax system will apply to taxpayers filing delayed returns, prohibiting deductions and exemptions under sections 80C and 80D, among other things.

Carrying over losses: Failure to file by the deadline results means the taxpayers will lose the chance to carry over capital losses to subsequent years. This could also affect taxpayers’ ability to deduct their losses from future capital gains.

The default tax regime: The new tax system will be the default tax regime for the fiscal year 2023-24. Late filers will immediately be switched to this regime and will no longer be eligible for deductions offered by the old tax system.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman leaves after briefing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs on the Union Budget 2023-24, at Parliament House, in New Delhi on Friday.
| Photo Credit: ANI

BJP MPs on Friday interacted with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the merits and demerits of the new and old income tax regimes at a briefing here on the Union Budget, which was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.

Members from both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were present at the briefing on the Budget, the last full one before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, and for which the BJP has drawn up a massive outreach programme explaining the main highlights.

“There was a power point presentation on the Budget and its highlights, but the Finance Minister went into great detail about the new and old income tax schemes, and the changed slabs. Tax issues always require this kind of explanations, they are never easy, and many MPs had queries on the relative merits and demerits,” said a BJP MP present at the meeting.

There were also questions on the slashing of allocation for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) compared with the past few years. The Budget allocated ₹60,000 crore for the MGNREGS, which is 18% lower than the Budget Estimates of ₹73,000 crore for the current year, and 33% lower than the Revised Estimates of ₹89,000 crore for the scheme.

“On this, the Finance Minister said that the the hiked allocations for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, up 66% in this Budget, especially for tier two and three cities will make up for creation of similar employment. She said that during COVID-19 there were situations for increasing the allocations, and that the scheme is largely demand-driven,” the source said.

The capital expenditure detailed in the Budget was also gone into in detail, and flagged as something that the BJP MPs should speak about when talking about the Budget. The Mahila Samman Patra, a small savings instrument for women with interest rate up to 7.5% for deposits of up to ₹2 lakhs was also talked about.

The BJP kicked off its outreach programme on the Budget on Friday, with Chief Ministers of the States ruled by the party holding press conferences. As part of the programme, Union Ministers will also fan out to the State capitals to talk about the highlights of the Budget.