Glitches on income tax portal: Taxpayers and professionals have encountered numerous technical glitches while filing their income tax returns for 2024. Issues include login failures, unresponsive pages, timeouts, and problems reflecting pre-filled data and uploading large files. Inconsistent calculations for capital gains and foreign income tax have also been reported, as well as instances where filings were not reflected in records after submission. As the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns for AY 2024-25 approaches on July 31, there are widespread calls for an extension due to these technical difficulties.

Livemint spoke to industry experts to understand the technical challenges they are encountering while filing Income Tax Returns

“Numerous taxpayers have taken to social media to voice their concerns, criticizing the Income Tax Department for not adequately preparing for the expected surge in e-filing, resulting in technical issues on the e-filing portal,” said CA Abhishek Jain, Partner Kailash Chand Jain & Co.

CA Abhishek Jain has written to the department, highlighting the technical glitches hindering tax professionals and individual taxpayers. He has requested an extension of the ITR filing deadline, citing problems with tax payments and return filings on the portal due to these technical issues.

1)Difficulties in accessing Form 26AS/AIS/TIS

Abhishek Jain, a CA, highlighted challenges with accessing Form 26AS/AIS/TIS, citing discrepancies in figures and joint income issues triggering scrutiny notices despite timely notifications.

Aarti Raote, Partner at Deloitte India, noted that despite its user-friendly design, the tax portal faces accessibility issues and slow speeds during peak filing periods. Users have also reported disparities between Form 26AS and AIS data.

2)Limited response options in AIS/TIS

There are limited response options in AIS/TIS, often failing to capture taxpayers' specific situations, with updates in AIS not promptly reflecting in TIS.

3) Mismatched pre-filled data in the ITR forms

Users face logging-in difficulties such as site unresponsiveness and timeouts. Migration issues with pre-filled data necessitate manual corrections, and uploading files larger than 1MB proves challenging, according to Gaurav Singh Parmar, Associate Director at Fincorpit Consulting.

4)Calculations for capital gains and foreign income tax

Gaurav Singh Parmar also highlighted inconsistencies in capital gains and foreign income tax calculations, which sometimes inaccurately reflect filed returns in records, causing concern.

5) OTP verification failures

According to Gaurav Singh Parmar, OTP verification failures and repeated submission attempts due to validation glitches further complicate the filing process.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has also written to the Income Tax Department, urging the government to consider a more reliable e-filing portal to support taxpayers better.