In May 2025, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) set the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) for non-audit cases for the Assessment Year 2025-26 as September 15, 2025. However, taxpayers and chartered accountants are now facing difficulties as several essential return filing utilities have not yet been released, and the portal’s preparedness is still lagging.
Tax experts believe that taxpayers should not be penalised for system-related delays. They are demanding an extension of the deadline to September 30 for non-audit cases and to November 30 for audit cases.
Which utilities are still pending?
As of now, major return filing utilities such as ITR-2, ITR-3, ITR-5, ITR-6, and ITR-7 for AY 2025-26 are still not available on the portal. In addition, the updated return utilities for AY 2021-22 and 2022-23 are also pending, which need to incorporate changes introduced through the Finance Act, 2025.
Tax Audit Filing Also Stuck
The forms required for audit cases — Form 3CA/3CB-3CD — have not been released yet. Due to this, thousands of audit-related filings cannot be processed.
What Are Experts Saying?
A senior chartered accountant stated that the system is not fully prepared and the compliance calendar is extremely tight. Taxpayers who are ready to file should not suffer due to technical glitches. The department should acknowledge the delay and extend the deadlines accordingly.
Many tax professionals have cited practical concerns and precedents while urging the government to extend the ITR filing deadline to September 30, 2025 for non-audit cases and to November 30, 2025 for audit cases.
Although the original deadline for non-audit cases is July 31, experts believe that if the remaining utilities are not made available within the next few days, the deadline could be extended once again. They argue that system failures are preventing thousands of taxpayers from initiating or completing their filings, and the department must take a timely decision.
As of now, there is no official announcement from the Income Tax Department regarding a deadline extension, but stakeholders are hopeful that a positive decision will be made soon in the interest of taxpayers.