2023 ITR for Business Professionals: Last or Due Date Should be Revised Even in Non-Tax Audit Cases
The ease of doing business and filing Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for self-employed individuals should include an extension of the filing date beyond 31st July 2023 for non-audit cases.
The ITR forms and their respective sizes in PDF format for the assessment year 2023-24 are as follows:
| ITR form no. | Pages | To be used by: |
| ITR 1 Sahaj | 3 | For individuals being a resident (other than not ordinarily resident) having total income up to Rs.50 lakh, having Income from Salaries, one house property, other sources (Interest etc.), and agricultural income up to Rs.5 thousand |
| ITR 2 | 34 | For Individuals and HUFs not having income from profits and gains of business or profession |
| ITR 3 | 58 | For individuals and HUFs having income from profits and gains of business or profession |
| ITR 4 SUGAM | 6 | For Individuals, HUFs and Firms (other than LLP) being a resident having total income upto Rs.50 lakh and having income from business and profession which is computed under sections 44AD, 44ADA or 44AE, |
| ITR 5 | 54 | For persons other than- (i) individual, (ii) HUF, (iii) company and (iv) person filing Form ITR-7 |
| ITR 6 | 80 | For Companies other than companies claiming exemption under section 11 |
| ITR 7 | 33 | For persons including companies required to furnish return under sections 139(4A) or 139(4B) or 139(4C) or 139(4D) only. |
Last or due date 31.07.2023 – in non-audit cases:
The last or due date for non-audit cases is 31st July 2023. In cases where there is no audit requirement under any law, including the Income Tax Act, 1961, the due date to file the ITR is 31st July 2023.
However, in cases where an audit is required under any law (e.g., in the case of a company), the due date is 31st October 2023, irrespective of the size of the company and the volume of business, and regardless of whether an audit under the Income Tax Act is required or not. The meaning of ‘due date’ is defined as follows:
Explanation 2.–In this sub-section, “due date” means,-
(a) where the assessee other than an assessee referred to in clause (aa) is-
(i) a company ; or
(ii) a person (other than a company) whose accounts are required to be audited under this Act or under any other law for the time being in force; or
(iii) a partner of a firm whose accounts are required to be audited under this Act or under any other law for the time being in force or the spouse of such partner if the provisions of section 5A applies to such spouse],
the 31st day of October of the assessment year;
[(aa) in the case of an assessee , including the partners of the firm or the spouse of such partner (if the provisions of section 5A applies to such spouse) being such assessee,] who is required to furnish a report referred to in section 92E, the 30th day of November of the assessment year;]
(b) in the case of a person other than a company, referred to in the first proviso to this sub-section, the 31st day of October of the assessment year;
(c) in the case of any other assessee, the 31st day of July of the assessment year.
– Vide Explanation 2 in section 139 of IT Act.
Therefore, we find that in non-audit cases, generally due date is 31.07.23 irrespeictive of size of ITR form and size of information to be filled in.
Non- audit cases include high volume cases also:
Tax audit may not be required even in cases of turnover of Rs.10 crore.
Last date for non-audit ITR have been fixed uniformly in a highly prejudiced manner ignoring ground realities and difficulties of taxpayers.
These taxpayers may not have audit compulsion but they have dealing with others who have audit compulsions. Besides, compilation of information and data is similar to those of audit cases. Although volume may be less but exercises involved are time consuming.
Most important factor for consideration is that non audit cases are mostly related to unorganized sector because of smaller size. A large organization which is highly organized can make compliances quickly because they have large human, infrastructure and fiscal resources which are lacking in case of small and medium sized organizations who are generally out of audit coverage.
Relevance of due date affecting claims:
Some claims for deductions, benefits can be made only if some compliance is completed within due date. For example, payments allowable if actually made before due date u/s. 43B for tax , duty , fees etc. In case of business who do not require audit only payments made till 31.07.2023 will be allowed. Whereas in audit cases it can be 31st October, 2023 means 3 extra months are allowed.
Effected persons are self-employed persons like individuals, firms and HUF :
Many self-employed people are carrying business and profession in these styles who are not under compulsion of audit under any other law. As mentioned earlier there can be no tax audit requirement even up to Rs. 10 crore turnover. Provisions of S.43B, TDS and TCS may be applicable even if tax audit under IT Act is not required.
Therefore, allowing time up to 31 July instead of 31 October is not justified for this reason also.
These are such reasons which really are good enough to amend provisions od S139 for different last dates for different ITR forms.
Experience with short and long ITR at processing stage at CPC
Now ITR are being processed mostly with use of strong artificial intelligence system CPC is having. This is used for comparison of data in various ways as found in ITR and other reports and past ITR , past assessment also.
We find that in many short and simple ITR processing was completed within few minutes (not even half an hour) and refunds were allowed and granted within few hours / days.
However , all these examples are for various simple ITR forms in which people have filed ROI, just as per AIS, TIS and form 26AS.
Delayed processing of long and even a bit more informative ITR:
Official data are not available , however, it is learned from professional friends that ITR having business income, capital gains, and bit more information and data are processed very slowly.
Majority of ITR for earlier few years which were in long ITR forms and have some substantial information and data took long time in processing and refunds.
Therefore, when department itself is taking long time in processing even non-audit simple cases of ITR having business income, capital gains, share holdings etc. then why time allowed to assesses required to file long ITR forms is just shortest time which is allowed for simplest and shortest of ITR forms.
There is no justification and an extension for business and professionals is required to file ITR even if any type of audit is not required.
Author Bio
Yes. It is gross injustice to treat all the non-tax audit assesses on the same footing. Though the ITRs can be filed from 1st April, practically it is not possible since the due date for TDS return is 31st May for the Q4 and due date for filing of data for AIS/TIS by various agencies is also 31st May thereby the assessees have to wait till the first week of June to have all the required information. Therefore the provisions of IT Act have to amended to fix the last date for filing the ITRs of assessees having income from business/profession.