There was no penalty for filing belated income tax returns till the financial year 2016-17. The Income Tax Department has introduced penalty on late return filing from the financial year 2017-18. For this a new section 234F was added in the Income Tax Act, 1961.
Have you filed Income Tax Return? If you haven’t, there is still time. July 31, 2022 is the deadline for filing Income Tax Return. The returns for the financial year 2021-22 are required to be filed by July 31. The Income Tax Department is sending reminders to people about this through SMS and email. He is also reminding people of the last date on social media.
Due to some reasons people miss to file returns within the deadline. The Income Tax Department allows such people to file late returns. This is called Belated ITR. If the government does not extend the deadline for filing ITR this year, then the belated return can be filed till December 31, 2022. Remember that late fee is levied on belated return filing.
There was no penalty for filing belated income tax return till the financial year 2016-17. The Income Tax Department has introduced penalty on late return filing from the financial year 2017-18. For this a new section 234F was added in the Income Tax Act, 1961. Then, this section was amended in the 2021 budget.
If your tax liability is created, then you will have to pay interest on tax on filing the belated return. If you do not have any tax liability, then you will not have to pay any interest on filing the belated return.
Under Section 234F of the Income Tax Act, the maximum penalty for filing returns after the deadline is Rs 5000. Earlier this penalty was Rs 10,000. The penalty has been reduced to Rs 5000 from the financial year 2020-21. However, the Income Tax Department has given additional relief to people with low income. It has said that if the total income of the taxpayer does not exceed Rs 5 lakh per annum, then the maximum penalty for late filing of return will be Rs 1000.
The procedure for filing belated returns is the same as for filing returns before the deadline. One major difference is that you have to select ‘Return filed under section 139(4)’ from the dropdown menu. If you make a mistake in filing the belated return, you will be allowed to revise the same.
