If you haven’t filed your income tax on or before July 31, 2024, you have forfeited your opportunity for all the tax deduction benefits from the investments that you might have done between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024.
What Section 80C mentions
Over the years, Section 80C of the Income Tax Act 1961 has been the bible of taxpayers. Millions have invested their hard-earned money in instruments such as Public Provident Fund (PPF), Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS), Senior Citizen Savings Scheme, Unit Linked Insurance Policy (ULIP), Tax saver Fixed Deposits (FD), Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY), National Savings Certificate (NSC), infrastructure bonds and derived tax deductions from them.
The maximum amount that you could have invested in FY24 is Rs 1.5 lakh. Now you have to lose the full benefit of these investments.
If you haven’t filed your Income Tax Return (ITR) by July 31, you can only do it under the new tax regime, which does not allow any of the benefits mentioned in Section 80C.
Deductions under new tax regime
The new tax system allows only those benefits mentioned under section 80CCD(2) which is the employer’s contribution to the National Pension System (NPS) and Section 80CCH which pertains to any contribution under the Agniveer Corpus Fund.
There is another deduction but it pertains to employers. Section 80JJAA of the Income Tax Act allows businesses to claim deductions against additional staff costs during Assessment Year (AY) 2024–25.
Tax burden lower
However, though this is no good news for you, there is one bright spot. The new tax system is simpler and overall it could result in a smaller tax burden even after disallowing deductions and exemptions.
“We have filed most ITRs within the July 31 deadline under the new tax regime. The reason is, taxpayers have found the burden to be less than the old regime,” said Himadri Mukhopadhyay, secretary, Income Tax Bar Association, Calcutta.
Add the penalty
However, one must remember that one has to pay a penalty of Rs 5,000 with the belated returns if the annual income is more than Rs 5 lakh. This would push the eventual payout of the taxpayer.
The penalty for late filing will go down to Rs 1,000 if the annual income of the taxpayer is below Rs 5 lakh.
More than 7 crore ITRs have been filed before the expiry of the July 31, 2024 deadline. If you aren’t one of them, you can file a belated ITR only under the new tax system. Biz News Business News – Personal Finance News, Share Market News, BSE/NSE News, Stock Exchange News Today
