Representation on extension of Due Date of filing of Tax Audit and Income Tax Return

Representation on extension of Due Date of filing of Tax Audit and Income Tax Return

TAX BAR ASSOCIATION
BHILWARA

Date: 15th Dec. 2020

To,

Smt. Nirmala Sitaraman
Hon’ble Finance Minister,
Ministry of Finance,
Government of India,
North Block,
New Delhi 110001

Subject: Request for extension of Due Date of filing of Tax Audit and Income Tax Return for Assessment Year 2020 due to COVID 19 Pandemic.

The Tax Bar Association Bhilwara is organization of tax practitioners of Bhilwara having Advocates, Chartered Accountants and Tax practitioners having more than 200 members.

At the outset, we would like to convey our sincere thanks and gratitude to the Government for the way the pandemic has been efficiently tackled. Also to the Finance Ministry to provide extension of due dates of filing Income tax audit report and income tax return (non-tax audit cases) filing upto 31 December 2020 and Income tax return filing (tax audit cases) 31 January 2021 considering the COVID 19 conditions.

As you are aware, there is sudden increase in the COVID 19 cases across India. Our Bhilwara is worst affected from COVID 19 pandemic. Bhilwara has been receiving hundreds of cases on daily basis with more than 10000 cases reported till date.

 

Further, we wish to highlight as under :

1. Curfew at Bhilwara

Considering the increased number of cases in Bhilwara, the Administration imposed curfew till 16 November 2020. As on today, the Administration has imposed curfew in containment zones. Further, since 22 November 2020, the Authorities have imposed night curfew from 8 pm to 6 am. During the night curfew, all markets, work places and commercial complexes shall be closed by 7 pm. Considering the curfew, the tax professionals are left with limited working hours to complete the work.

2. Various businessman, accountants and tax professionals have been tested positive and were under quarantine. This has resulted into delay in completing audits and filing of Income-tax returns.

In many cases, the work is hampered due to cases of COVID 19 being in stages. For eg. Once the accountant is tested positive, the work was stopped for 20 days. Once he joined back, the business man/ professional staff is tested positive. In this manner, the work is delayed by more then 1-2 months.

3. The reporting requirement of tax Audit and statutory audit requires various information to be checked and feeded in forms. In many cases, reporting is pending due to non-availability of details. Considering the limited staff availability, lesser visits to the client place, calling for information via scanned or couriers, limited working hours, it is taking a lot more time to complete an audit as compared to earlier years.

4. Long term effect: Considering the heavy medication during the COVID 19 treatment, even after recovering from COVID, businessmen and professional staff are taking time resume offices. This is also impacting the efficiency of our professional staff. Even doctors are advising to take precautions even after recovering from COVID 19.

5. Festive season: As you are aware, due to COVID19 the business of many MSME were impacted severely. The business man got a chance during the festive season to recover the losses and streamline the business. However, he is also required to focus on complying with statutory due dates. Many time he has to visit tax professionals offices during the peak business hours to get his compliance done in due time.

6. Updation in utilities and instructions:

The utilities are being updated with various bugs fixes:

Form	Excel Utility	Java Utility
ITR 1	01-12-2020	01-12-2020
ITR 2	10-12-2020	01-12-2020
ITR 3	01-12-2020	01-12-2020
ITR 4	01-12-2020	01-12-2020
ITR 5	03-12-2020	10-12-2020
ITR 6	03-12-2020	03-12-2020
ITR 7	08-12-2020	08-12-2020

Further, revised instructions to file various ITRs were issued on 22 November 2020 to provide clarity in filing ITR.

7. Various due dates being overlapped: Along with the aforesaid Income-tax due dates, there are other compliance with due date of 31 December 2020.

a. GST annual return for FY 2018-19 (GSTR 9/9A) – 31 December 2020
b. GST Audit/ Reconciliation statement (GSTR 9C) for FY 2018-19 – 31 December 2020
c. The due date for holding AGM for corporate entities can not be extended beyond 31 December 2020
d. The due date for filing declaration under Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Act 2020 is 31 December 2020

These bottlenecks are making it difficult for the assessee, the accounts and the tax professionals to comply even with the extended due dates.

In view of the above genuine difficulties being forced by tax payers and tax practitioners due to outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, we would request you to further extend the due date of filing tax audit report to 28 February 2021 and Income tax return filing to 31 March at the earliest. The entire fraternity of tax payers and professionals will highly appreciate if this is done soon enough (i.e. well in advance).

We hope your honour shall take positive action to resolve the problems faced by the members. We look forward to your kind support and cooperation.

Thank you
For: Tax Bar Association, Bhilwara

sd/- President (CA Atul Somani)

sd/- Secretary (CA Amit Kumar Seth)

sd/- Treasurer (CA Ankit Lakhotiya)

Cc:
1. Hon’ble Chairman CBDT, New Delhi
2. The CCIT, Udaipur
3. The JCIT, Range-2, Ajmer

Tags: Income Tax

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