The number of income tax e-fillings dropped by more than 6.6 lakh in FY 2019, according to the statistics put on Income Tax Department’s e-filing website.
The income tax e-fillings for the FY 2018-19, was 6.68 crore, which has come down from that of 6.74 crore in FY 2017-18, after a jump from 5.28 crore in FY 2016-17.
The number of filers registered on March 31, 2019, was 8.45 crore, which was 15 percent more than that of 2018.
With July 31 as a deadline for the filing, the tax return forms for FY 2019-20 have been notified.
Kotak Economic Research, a report released by Kotak Securities on April 30, 2019 revealed that, “We are surprised with the decline in income tax e-filing in FY2019. If the filings are indeed plateauing, it will be a worry for the fiscal which has seemingly shifted its focus to compensatory expenditure. Tax filings have surprisingly plateaued in FY2019. This is surprising given that post demonetisation it was expected that the tax base would continue to increase.”
“The declining e-filings does beg the question of whether compliance was weaker in the latter part of FY2019 given that the number of registered filers has continued to see steady growth. If compliance has been weak, the new government will aim at increasing the filings and collections in FY2020,” Kotak said.
