The I-T department has seen a substantial rise in number of transactions. Photo: incometax.gov.in

The July 31 deadline for filing Income Tax (I-T) returns is unlikely to be extended. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has intervened to fix recent glitches and downtimes reported on the I-T portal by ramping up its back-end capacity to cope with a higher workload experienced this year.

Acknowledging taxpayers’ concerns about delayed generation of TDS (Tax Deduction at Source) and Form 16 certificates, and the “slowness” of the I-T portal, CBDT chairperson Ravi Agarwal told The Hindu these issues have now been resolved, and as many as 28 lakh tax returns were filed on Wednesday with no downtime reported.

“Even per-hour filings are now at an all-time high. So therefore, I think we can say with confidence that over the next six days, we should be able to take care of it. Most of the problems have been addressed and sorted out, and yesterday, there was no apparent reporting of any of these problems like downtime, and even today, there is no issue so far,” he said late Thursday afternoon.

The I-T department has seen a substantial rise in number of transactions reported this year, Mr. Agarwal said, and some of the government officials in charge of issuing such deduction certificates were also occupied with election duty, delaying some issuances.

“Then there was a report of slowness on the website and people were finding it difficult. So now, some corrective measures have been taken in terms of ramping up the hardware, and also putting those solutions in place,” the CBDT chief assured.

“There has been a 15% growth in TDS transactions and about 30% growth in third-party transactions, and that has to get populated in the pre-filled I-T forms and the corresponding TDS certificates also have to be issued. Now, what happened was that because of elections, the deductors from the government side were engaged in the election duty… so all that got delayed, and then all of a sudden, we got that filing in bulk as far as TDS statements are concerned.”

“To process those statements and convert them into TDS certificates, was taking time, and involved a lot of data. But we have been able to resolve that, and we are up to date on the issue of TDS certificates not being downloaded or not being made available,” Mr. Agarwal said.

Tax payers file their income-tax returns. As many as 7.41 crore I-T returns have been filed so far this year, which include 53 lakh first-time tax filers. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

India’s tax base has widened sharply since 2013-14, with individuals moving up the income ladder and the proportion of super-rich taxpayers’ incomes declining, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said on Thursday, days after the Congress cited income tax data to show widening income inequality in the country.

The overall number of income tax (I-T) returns filed by individuals has risen from 3.36 crore to 6.37 crore through assessment years 2013-14 to 2021-22, while there is also an increase in number of returns filed by individual taxpayers across various ranges of gross total income, the CBDT said in a statement.

“In the range of gross total income up to ₹5 lakh, the number of returns filed by individual taxpayers has increased from 2.62 crore in AY 2013-14 to 3.47 crore in AY 2021-22, registering an increase of 32%. This range of income includes individuals having income below taxable limit who may not be filing returns,” the board pointed out.

Migration to higher range

For higher income ranges of ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh, and ₹10 lakh to ₹25 lakh, the number of individual returns filed surged 295% and 291% individuals over the same period, respectively. “This indicates that individual taxpayers are showing a positive trend of migration to higher range of gross total income,” the CBDT said.

Digging deeper into the data reveals that the proportionate contribution of gross total income of top 1% individual taxpayers vis-à-vis all individual taxpayers has decreased from 15.9% to 14.6%, the board said, while the share of the bottom 25% taxpayers increased from 8.3% to 8.4% over the same period.

“The proportion of gross total income of middle 74% group of individual taxpayers increased from 75.8% to 77% in the above period,” the statement said, adding that the average gross total income for individual taxpayers increased from about ₹4.5 lakh to about ₹7 lakh over the nine-year period, representing an increase of 56%.

“The increase in average gross total income for top 1% individual taxpayers is 42% while that for bottom 25% individual taxpayers is 58%,” it added.

The data indicates “robust growth in the gross total income of individuals across different income groups subsequent to AY 2013-14”, the board emphasised, adding this was reflected in the increase in net direct tax collections from ₹6.38 lakh crore in 2013-14 to ₹16.61 lakh crore in 2022-23.

As many as 7.41 crore I-T returns have been filed so far this year, which include 53 lakh first-time tax filers.

New Delhi:

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) Chairman Nitin Gupta said the Income Tax Department will analyse the bank accounts of Indian nationals and organisations it received from Swiss Bank and will take action under the black money Act in case any tax evasion was found.

In an exclusive interview with ANI, Nitin Gupta, who recently got an extension for nine months in tenure, said, “We have received information about bank accounts of Indian nationals and organisations in the Swiss Bank as part of the annual automatic information exchange under which Switzerland has shared particulars of nearly 36 lakh financial accounts with 104 countries.”

The latest set of information shared by Swiss authorities as part of the annual automatic information exchange, was notably the fifth such tranche. The first such exchange with India took place in 2019.

“Our department (will) work on that information. If some Indian nationals have assets in foreign countries and had not informed the Income Tax department and are liable to pay taxes, we act against such persons under the black money act,” Mr Gupta added.

In October 2022, India received the fourth tranche of information on financial accounts from Switzerland since the two countries entered into an Automatic Exchange Of Information (AEOI) agreement in 2018, in order to improve tax discipline and avert potential evasion.

The annual exchange of information allows countries to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.

The exercise by the Swiss authorities is strictly meant for “tax only” purposes. In India, the data is kept in the custody of and for action by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

In early January 2023, Switzerland’s ambassador to India Ralf Heckner had said he “almost heard nothing” on black money in the last two years of his tenure and that the matter was dealt with in a bilateral treaty between Switzerland and India by means of an automatic exchange of banking information between the two countries.

The Swiss envoy had said black money was “not an issue anymore.”

“I have been Swiss ambassador for more than two years and I almost heard nothing or hardly anything about black money. The black money issue has been dealt with by a bilateral treaty between Switzerland and India in 2018 on the automatic exchange of banking information between Switzerland and India (in both directions),” the Swiss ambassador had told ANI.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)