India: Extension of due dates to file the income-tax returns and tax audit reports for financial year 2020-21

published on 23 September 2021 | reading time approx. 2 minutes

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (‘CBDT’), on consideration of difficulties reported by the taxpayers and other stakeholders, has extended due dates for filing of India Income-tax return (‘ITR’) and various reports of audit for the financial year 2020-21.

The various extensions are tabulated below:

(For an optimal display of the table, the use of a desktop PC or tablet is recommended.)

S.no.	Particulars	Original due date	Existing Date	Revised due date
1.	ITR for a company (including a foreign company) or other taxpayers who are required to get their financial statement audited (including partners of a partnership firm) and furnish a tax audit report – where Transfer Pricing is not applicable	31 October 2021	30 November 2021	15 February 2022
2.	ITR for taxpayers who are required to furnish transfer pricing report in respect of international/specified domestic transactions	30 November 2021	31 December 2021	28 February 2022
3.	Other taxpayers (including, expatriate individuals, foreign partnership firms	31 July 2021	30 September 2021	31 December 2021
4.	Tax Audit Report	30 September 2021	31 October 2021	15 January 2022
5.	Transfer Pricing Report in respect of international/specified domestic transactions	31 October 2021	30 November 2021	31 January 2022
6.	Belated/Revised ITR	31 December 2021	31 January 2022	31 March 2022

In our experience, most of the above extended due dates would fall during the Christmas/Winter Break wherein we foresee challenges with availability of relevant team members/individual who are responsible to provide necessary information for completing the tax filings and also heads/directors are required to approve the tax computation and sign the tax returns using their digital signature. Thus, it would be of utmost importance to plan the work-flow to complete all the India tax filings before the Christmas holidays (for e.g., 15 December).

Having said the above, please note that tax return filing utility is still not notified by the Indian Government. Further, there are certain challenges being faced with registration of Digital Signature on the income-tax portal (among others). If the above issues are not resolved by the Indian Government on time, this may have an impact on the overall work-flow planning and availability of relevant teams will have to be managed to meet the extended due dates.