Amended Due date of Filing of Belated return or Revised return

Major amendment pertaining to Due date of Filing of Belated return or Revised return

Rationalisation for Reducing time to file belated return and to revise original return and its effect on other provision of Income Tax

With the massive technological upgrade in the Department where the processes under the Act are moving towards becoming faceless and jurisdiction-less, the time taken to conduct and complete such processes has greatly reduced. Therefore, it is proposed that the last date for filing of belated or revised returns of income, as the case may be, be reduced by three months.

Now the amended provisions read as under: –

For Belated Return

Section 139(4) Any person who has not furnished a return within the time allowed to him under sub-section (1), may furnish the return for any previous year at any time before

• 3 months prior to the end of the relevant assessment year (i.e. 31^st December of the Assessment year) or
• the completion of the assessment,

whichever is earlier.

For Revised Return

Section 139(5) If any person, having furnished a return under sub-section (1) or sub-section (4), discovers any omission or any wrong statement therein, he may furnish a revised return at any time

• 3 months prior to the end of the relevant assessment year (i.e. 31^st December of the Assessment year) or
• the completion of the assessment,

whichever is earlier.

It will not be appropriate to state here that, just because of aforementioned amendment, question will come into the mind that what will be the impact of amendment on the Section 234F (Fee for default in furnishing return of income).

There is an amendment in this section as well. For your kind information I want to highlight the point that fees of INR 10,000 now have been abolished.

Section 234F which is read as under:-

(1) Without prejudice to the provisions of this Act,

• • where a person required to furnish a return of income under section 139,
  • fails to do so within the time prescribed in sub-section (1) of the said section,
  • he shall pay, by way of a fee, a sum of 5 thousand rupees 

Provided that

• • if the total income of the person
  • does not exceed 5 lakh rupees,
  • the fee payable under this section shall not exceed one thousand rupees.