With taxpayers and tax professionals making their compliances in time, the IT department has reported a surge in filing of Income-tax Returns (ITRs), which resulted in a new record of ITRs filed till 31st July 2024. The total number of ITRs for AY 2024-25 filed till 31st July, 2024 is more than 7.28 crore, which is 7.5 per cent more than the total ITRs for AY 2023-24 (6.77 crore) filed till 31st July, 2023.
An increasing number of taxpayers have opted for the New Tax Regime this year. Out of the total ITRs of 7.28 crore filed for AY 2024-25, 5.27 crore have been filed in the New Tax Regime compared to 2.01 crore ITRs filed in the Old Tax Regime. Thus, about 72 per cent of taxpayers have opted for the New Tax Regime, while 28 per cent continue to be in the Old Tax Regime.
The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31, 2024 (due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases) with over 69.92 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day i.e. on 31st July, 2024. The e-filing portal also observed its highest per hour rate of 5.07 lakh of ITR filing between 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm on 31.07.2024. The highest per second rate of ITR filing was 917 (17.07.2024, 08:13:54 am) and highest per minute rate of ITR filing was 9,367 (31.07.2024, 08:08 pm).
The Department also received 58.57 lakh ITRs till 31.07.2024 from first time filers, a fair indication of widening of tax base.
In a historic first, ITRs (ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the Financial Year i.e. on 01.04.2024. The ITR-3 and ITR-5 were also released earlier in comparison with the preceding financial years. A lot of emphasis was provided to educate taxpayers about Old and New tax regimes. FAQs and educational Videos on the same were designed and uploaded on the e-filing portal.
Focussed outreach campaigns were carried out on Social Media to encourage the taxpayers to file their ITRs early. Along with this, unique creative campaigns were also carried out on different platforms. Informational Videos in 12 Vernacular languages, apart from English and Hindi, were displayed on digital platforms. Outdoor campaigns were also carried out. Such concerted efforts led to fruitful results with increased number of filings.
Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs filed for A.Y. 2024-25, 45.77 per cent of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.34 crore), 14.93 per cent are ITR-2 (1.09 crore), 12.50 per cent are ITR-3 (91.10 lakh), 25.77 per cent are ITR-4 (1.88 crore) and 1.03 per cent are ITR-5 to ITR-7 (7.48 lakh). Over 43.82 per cent of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance have been filed using offline ITR utilities.
During the peak filing period, the e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic, providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filing of ITRs. On 31st July, 2024 alone, successful logins stood at 3.2 crore.
The process of e-verification is important to commence the processing of ITRs and to issue refunds, if any. It is encouraging to note that over 6.21 crore ITRs have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP (93.56%). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 2.69 crore ITRs for the A.Y. 2024-2025 have been processed (43.34 per cent) till 31st July, 2024. Over 91.94 lakh challans have been received through TIN 2.0 payment system in the month of July, 2024 (for AY 2024-25), while total number of challans filed through TIN 2.0 since 1st April, 2024 stands at 1.64 crore (for AY 2024-25).
The e-filing Helpdesk team has handled approximately 10.64 lakh queries from taxpayers during the year upto 31.07.2024, supporting the taxpayers proactively during the peak filing period. Support from the helpdesk was provided to taxpayers through inbound and outbound calls, live chats, WebEx and co-browsing sessions.
Helpdesk team also supported resolution of queries received on the X(Twitter) handle of the Department through Online Response Management (ORM), by proactively reaching out to the taxpayers/ stakeholders and assisting them for different issues on a near real-time basis. The team handled over 1.07 lakh e-mails between the period April 01 to July 31, 2024 and successfully resolved 99.97 per cent queries.
The Department expresses its gratitude to tax professionals and taxpayers for their support in compliances in filing of ITRs and Forms. Taxpayers are also requested to verify their unverified ITRs if any, within 30 days of filing the ITR.
The Department also urges taxpayers, who for any reason, missed filing their ITR within the due date, to complete their filing expeditiously.
The following data of ITR filing over the last few years corroborates the same:
| AY | Due date | No of Returns filed |
| 2020-21 | 10/01/2021 | 5,78,45,678 |
| 2021-22 | 31/12/2021 | 5,77,39,682 |
| 2022-23 | 31/07/2022 | 5,82,88,692 |
| 2023-24 | 31/07/2023 | 6,77,42,303 |
| 2024-25 | 31/07/2024 | 7,28,80,318 |