The government may have to extend the due date for filing income tax returns this year. The normal due date or deadline for filing ITRs by individuals is July 31. This is because the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has just issued a notification extending the deadline for employers to file their TDS returns and also to issue Form 16 to employees to June 30th and July 10th respectively.

If employees get their Form 16 by July 10th it leaves very little time for thousands of tax payers to file their returns if the deadline for filing of ITRs remains July 31 – only 21 days. Also, remember that since last year a penalty is payable for filing ITR after due date. Therefore, following this move of the CBDT, the extension of the due date for filing ITRs for individuals may well get extended too.

The due date for filing of ITRs for individuals has been extended in earlier years too for various reasons including: giving more time for PAN-Aadhaar linking, income tax e-filing website going down due to heavy rush etc. Given that now there will be very little time for the salaried to file their returns this year, there are likely to be several requests from various quarters urging the government to give more time to file the ITRs.

Naveen Wadhwa, chartered accountant and manager, Taxmann says “The CBDT has extended the due date of filing of Form 24Q, i.e., TDS return in respect of salary for the financial year 2018-19 from May 31, 2019 to June 30, 2019. The due date has been extended considering the latest changes made by the tax department in Form 24Q and to redress genuine hardship of employers in timely filing of TDS return in revised format of Form 24Q.”

The CBDT has issued a notification to amend the Form 24Q and Form 16 (TDS certificate in respect of salary income) with effect from May 12, 2019. As per the new format, every employer is required to report the detailed break-up of salary, exempt allowances and deductions claimed and allowed to an employee.

Further, the income-tax return forms for AY 2019-20 were also amended by CBDT in line with the changes made in Form 24Q and Form 16. The move has been made to cross check the information provided by an employee in ITR forms with TDS return filed by his employer.

“Every employer is required to issue Form 16 to his employee within 15 days of the due date of filing of TDS return. As the due date of filing of TDS return in respect of has been extended to June 30, 2019, the due date of issue of Form 16 has consequently been extended by 10 days to July 10, 2019,” adds Wadhwa.

The due date of filing of income-tax return for AY 2019-20 is 31st July 2019. So, it is very likely that the CBDT would also extend the due date of filing of income-tax return considering the extension in due date of issuance of Form 16.

“TDS reported by employers under 24Q populates TDS in form 26AS - therefore employees must make sure TDS appears in Form 26AS so that credit is available”, says Archit Gupta, CEO of Cleartax.

The tax department has made it mandatory for the employer to download and issue Part-B of Form-16 from the TRACES portal only. This has made Part-B of the Form-16 standardised across all employers. Previously, only Part-A of the Form-16 was standardised across all employers.

"CBDT has extended the due date of TDS return and Form 16 issue date by the employer. New due date of issuance of Form 16 is 10.07.2019. Consequently, it is expected that ITR Filing due date may also be extended by the CBDT," said Abhishek Soni, CEO, Tax2win.

Form-16 is an important TDS certificate, which is issued by your employer providing details of the total income paid to you and taxes deducted on it. It consists of two parts – Part A and Part B. Part-A consists of details of the taxes deducted by your employer during the financial year while Part-B has break-up of gross salary details, i.e. tax-exempt allowances, perquisites, tax-saving deductions and so on.