New Delhi: Finance Ministry on Sunday said that over 3 crore Income Tax Returns have been filed on the new e-filing portal of the Income Tax Department.

The number of ITRs filed per day is over 4 lakh and increasing everyday as the extended due date of 31st December 2021 is approaching, the ministry stated in an official statement.

“The Income Tax Department strongly urges all taxpayers to view their Form 26AS and Annual Information Statement (AIS) through the e-filing portal to verify the accuracy of the TDS and Tax Payments and avail of pre-filling of ITRs. It is important for taxpayers to cross-check the data in the AIS statement with their Bank passbook, interest certificate, Form 16 and Capital gains statement from brokerages in case of purchase and sale of equity/Mutual funds etc.” ministry said.

Income Tax Return (ITR) filing has increased to 3.03 crore ITRs for AY 2021-22. 58.98% of these are ITR1 (1.78 crore), 8% is ITR2 (24.42 lakh), 8.7% is ITR3 (26.58 lakh), 23.12% are ITR4 (70.07 lakh), ITR5 (2.14 lakh), ITR6 (0.91 lakh) and ITR7 (0.15 lakh). Over 52% of these ITRs are filed using the online ITR form on the portal and the balance is uploaded using the ITR created from the offline software utilities.

The process of e-verification through Aadhaar OTP and other methods is important for the Department to commence processing of the ITR and to issue refunds if any. It is encouraging to note that 2.69 crore returns have been e-verified, out of which more than 2.28 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP.

In November, 48% of the verified ITRs 1, 2 and 4 have been processed on the same day. Of the verified ITRs more than 2.11 crore ITRs have been processed and over 82.80 lakh refunds for AY 2021-22 have been issued. Taxpayers are urged to ensure that the bank account selected for credit of refund must have their PAN number linked at the bank to avoid refund failures.