The initial version of the excel utilities of some Income Tax Return (ITR) Forms had some challenges due to which the utilities of ITR-2, ITR-3 and so on have been not opening usually and have been displaying some error messages.
For instance, at the time of opening the excel utility of ITR-2, it was displaying the message – “Excel found unreadable content in ‘ITR2_2020_PR2.1.xlsm’. Do you want to recover the contents of this workbook? If you trust the source of this workbook, click Yes.”
While the file was finding closed on clicking ‘No’, it was opening on clicking ‘Yes’, but soon after removing some components.
On reporting the matter to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the Department acknowledged the difficulty and mentioned that the assessees utilizing 2007 and prior versions of MS Office would face the problem as the utility was compatible for the final 3 versions MS Office.
ITR Filing: People with higher salary, equity, MF investments may perhaps face compatibility challenges
The CBDT also mentioned that the concerned persons would attempt to resolve the problem and a story was published on FE Online in this regard.
Taking cognizance on the problem, the CBDT acted promptly to resolve the compatibility problem and the excel utilities began functioning usually on systems obtaining 2007 and prior versions of MS Office.
FE Online Impact: CBDT swiftly resolves compatibility challenges of ITR-2, ITR-3 excel utilities
However, soon after the later versions of excel utilities of the concerned ITR Forms have been uploaded on the Income Tax e-filing website – specially soon after the due date of filing of return of earnings for the Assessment Year (AY) 2020-21 was extended additional to December 31, 2020 – the problem has cropped up once again.
The difficulty cropped up once again, may perhaps be due to the compatibility problem with the initial version was most likely not kept in thoughts when upgrading the ITR excel utilities to incorporate the modifications.
While the extension in due date of filing ITR for the AY 2020-21 has supplied some respite to the taxpayers, the compatibility problem would make the filing tough for several of them as a lot of individuals use the 2007 or earlier versions of MS Office.
While the matter has been brought to the expertise of CBDT, but this time there is no response from the Department.
With about 3 weeks left ahead of the due date of filing ITR gets more than on December 31, 2020, unless the problem is resolved promptly or the due date is extended additional, several final-minute filers of ITR may perhaps miss the deadline.