ITR filing 2023: Last date for income tax return (ITR) filing for the financial year 2022-23 is 31st July 2023. Is it mandatory for senior citizens to file income tax returns for the financial year 2022-23? There is confusion in the minds of many persons as regards who has to file an ITR.
Introduced in Budget 2021, Section 194P of the Income-tax Act, 1961 offers relief to select senior citizens from filing income tax returns if they meet certain eligibility criteria.
Section 194P is applicable from 1st April 2021.Section 194P of the Income Tax Act exempts senior citizens aged 75 and above from filing ITR if they meet certain conditions, including having pension and interest income only from specified banks and submitting a declaration to the bank. The specified bank will deduct tax and there will be no need to file ITR.
No income tax filing required for senior citizens if they fulfill these conditions
“Section 194P of the Income Tax Act exempts senior citizens from filing ITR if they meet certain conditions, like, ‘Must be a resident of India and attain the age of 75 years or more by the end of FY 2022–23. The income should be just from pensions or interest through banks. Interest income accrued/earned from the same specified bank from which he receives his pension. Additionally, senior citizens should submit a declaration to these specified banks,”said Abhishek Soni, CEO and Co-founder Tax2win.
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Senior citizens with total income below the taxable limit may not file ITR. However, in case any TDS has been deducted from income earned by them, for example from fixed deposit interest income, then the only way to get a refund is by filing ITR.
“With deposits in the same bank from where the pension is received, may request the bank to deduct TDS accurately and then may not have to file their ITR where they have submitted a declaration to the Bank. Such a bank may allow deduction based on Chapter VIA (i.e. 80C etc) and deduct and deposit tax on their behalf. In such a case no ITR will have to be filed. As suggested income tax return must be filed if income is more than the taxable limit or where income is below the taxable limit yet TDS has been deducted so that they can claim a refund,” said Archit Gupta, Founder and CEO, Clear.
However, it is not clear how many senior citizens are benefitting from this provision, added Gupta.
Senior Citizens for AY 2023-2024: What does thenIncome tax act say
Section 194P of the Income Tax Act, of 1961 provides conditions for exempting Senior Citizens from filing income tax returns aged 75 years and above.
Conditions for exemption are:
-Senior Citizen should be of age 75 years or above
-Senior Citizen should be ‘Resident’ in the previous year
- Senior Citizen has pension income and interest income only & interest income accrued/earned from the same specified bank in which he is receiving his pension
- The senior citizen will submit a declaration to the specified bank.
- The bank is a ‘specified bank’ as notified by the Central Government. Such banks will be responsible for the TDS deduction of senior citizens after considering the deductions under Chapter VI-A and rebate under 87A.
- Once the specified bank, as mentioned above, deducts tax for senior citizens above 75 years of age, there will be no requirement to furnish income tax returns by senior citizens.
Will govt extend July 31 ITR filing deadline?
The finance ministry has asked income taxpayers to file their returns at the earliest as the government is not contemplating an extension of the July 31 deadline.
“We expect that the filing would be higher than the last year…we are hopeful that it should be more than the last year,” Revenue Secretary Sanjay Malhotra said in an interview with PTI.
Updated: 18 Jul 2023, 01:14 PM IST