Technical Glitches on E-Filing Income Tax Portal

In a Lok Sabha reply to Unstarred Question No. 60 answered on 20 July 2026, the Ministry of Finance stated that the CBDT e-Filing portal is a high-volume digital platform experiencing significantly increased usage during peak filing periods, with higher volumes of Income Tax Return filings, logins, challan generation and Form 26AS access during 8–14 July 2026 compared with the corresponding period in 2025. The reply states that some taxpayers may experience transient technical issues during peak concurrent load, but the portal has functioned in a largely stable and efficient manner with continuous monitoring and time-bound issue resolution. It further states that CBDT has strengthened the portal through enhanced infrastructure capacity, performance testing for handling up to one crore ITRs per day, rectification of earlier infrastructure issues, 24×7 monitoring, a dedicated War Room, upgraded security measures, and coordinated preparedness with stakeholders. The reply also states that contractual penalties have been imposed on the Managed Service Provider for delayed deployment of the IEC 2.0 project, lower quarterly service level performance over 12 quarters, application outages during the peak filing period in FY 2025-26, and extension of due dates attributable to the MSP.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
MINISTRY OF FINANCE
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE

LOK SABHA
UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 60

TO BE ANSWERED ON MONDAY, July 20, 2026/ASHADHA 29, 1948 (SAKA)

‘Technical Glitches on the E-Filing Income Tax Portal’

60. Shri. Shyamkumar Daulat Barve:

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state: –

a. Whether the Government is aware of the persistent technical glitches, data processing errors and systemic login failures on the e-filing Income Tax Portal, causing widespread disruptions for taxpayers, if so, the details thereof;

b. the specific technical or structural remediations steps taken by the Government to resolve these infrastructure deficits;

c. the details of contractual accountability measures or financial penalties, if any, initiated against the managed service provider (Infosys) for prolonged non-functioning and operational lapses?

ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE

(SHRI PANKAJ CHAUDHARY)

(a) The e-Filing portal of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is a high-volume digital platform, servicing crores of Indian taxpayers, generally with usage rising sharply in the days preceding statutory due dates. Income-tax portal has been witnessing constant increase in load over years which is evident from the following data of certain important activities on Income-tax portal during the last one week (8-14 July 2026) and the corresponding period (8-14 July) of 2025:

Given the high scale of concurrent access in the peak filing period, some taxpayers may, at times, experience transient technical issues such as slower page response or intermittent delays during periods of peak concurrent load.

However, despite the substantial increase in load, e-Filing portal has been functioning in a largely stable and efficient manner during the ongoing peak filing period, with performance being monitored on a continuous basis through a dedicated Daily/Hourly Monitoring Dashboard tracking login, Income Tax Returns (ITRs) filed, Annual Information Statement (AIS)/Compliance Portal redirections, payment gateway status, error codes and other operational indicators. Any technical issue reported is taken up for time-bound identification, escalation and resolution.

(b) CBDT has taken a series of technical and structural remediation measures to further strengthen the infrastructure of the e-Filing portal ahead of the peak filing period, including the following:

i. The e-Filing ecosystem has been comprehensively strengthened and performance-tested to support peak filing volumes, with validated capacity to handle up to 1 crore ITRs per day, ensuring sufficient headroom beyond the projected peak demand.

ii. Infrastructure capacity has been enhanced across compute, storage, memory, network, and bandwidth. Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)-recommended hardware and software upgrades, along with storage augmentation, have been implemented to improve overall system stability, resilience, and input/output performance.

iii. Major infrastructure issues identified during the earlier ITR filing seasons have been rectified.

iv. A robust monitoring and governance framework has been established, inter alia, comprising 24×7 infrastructure monitoring, a dedicated WarRoom, and coordinated participation of application, infrastructure, database, network, security, vendor, and stakeholder teams to enable proactive monitoring and rapid incident resolution.

v. Security infrastructure has been upgraded with the latest firewall versions, enhanced prevention mechanisms for Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack and bot attack, and improved coordination with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to enhance protection against cyber threats during the peak filing period.

vi. End-to-end operational readiness has been reinforced through coordinated preparedness with key external stakeholders, including UIDAI, Banks, RBI, CDSL, NSDL, ICAI, ERIs and relevant internal verticals, supported by structured governance, escalation mechanisms, and continuous readiness reviews to ensure uninterrupted service delivery during the ITR filing season.

Review of system performance on a real-time basis is an ongoing process, and the Government remains committed for a smooth taxpayer experience.

(c) Penalties imposed against the relevant Managed Service Provider (MSP) as per contractual terms in this context are as under:

i. As per the original schedule, MSP was required to deploy IEC 2.0 project [e-Filing portal is part of IEC 2.0 project i.e. ‘Integrated e-Filing and Centralized Processing Centre 2.0’project], for use of taxpayers, in July 2020 but the MSP could not deliver the project in time. Hence, a penalty in the form of ‘liquidated damages’, was imposed upon the MSP.

ii. The performance of MSP of IEC 2.0 is mainly ascertained through Service Levels Score, including prolonged non-functioning and operational lapses. Service Levels Score are measured on quarterly basis, and penalties for 12 quarters for the lower performance score have been imposed upon the MSP.

iii. As per relevant provisions of the contract, the MSP has to make all efforts to maintain application performance levels of the e-Filing portal and avoid application outage, especially during peak filing period. Penalty for application outage during peak period in e-filing services has been imposed upon the MSP in F.Y. 2025-26.

iv. MSP is liable for penalty if the due date of ITR filing or any other pre-notified date gets extended on account of any reasons attributable to the MSP. Penalty on this count has been imposed upon the MSP in F.Y. 2025-26.

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