INCOME tax returns (ITRs) touched a new record of over 7.28 crore, 7.5 per cent higher compared to previous fiscal, by the July 31 deadline, the income tax department said on Friday. The total number of ITRs for assessment year 2024-25 filed till July 31, 2024 is more than 7.28 crore, which is 7.5 per cent higher than the total ITRs for AY 2023-24 (6.77 crore) filed till July 31, 2023, the department said in a statement. “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,” it said. 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 (the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases), with over 69.92 lakh ITRs having been filed on a single day.

 

The department also received 58.57 lakh ITRs from first-time filers, a fair indication of the widening of the tax base. In a historic first, ITRs (ITR1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the Financial Year i.E. On April 1, 2024. 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) 12.5percentareITR-3(91.10 lakh),25.77percentare ITR4 (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 andtheremaininghavebeen filed using offline ITR utilities, it said. Duringthepeakfilingperiod, the e-filing portal successfully handled huge traffic, providing a seamless experience to taxpayers for filingofITRs.OnJuly31,2024 alone, successful logins stood at 3.2 crore. The process of e-verification is important to commencetheprocessingofITRs and to issue refunds, if any, it said. It is encouraging to notethatover6.21croreITRs have been e-verified, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar-based OTP (93.56 per cent).