Failure to verify your income tax return (ITR) within 30 days of filing it on the income tax portal will attract a penalty under the Income-tax Act, 1961. However, there are remedies if a taxpayer has a valid reason for not verifying it on time, but it will delay getting your refund.

The last date for filing an tax return is July 31 for the assessment year 2024-25. Taxpayers must file their ITRs by the deadline to carry forward capital loss. If there is a delay in verifying your ITR, a taxpayer can request a “condonation of delay” by providing the appropriate reason. Once the income tax department approves it, the taxpayer can verify it after the due date.

As per the income tax website, “Condonation of delay is the process of requesting the Income Tax Department to allow you to verify your ITR (after 120 days of filing your ITR) or submit your ITR (after the last date of filing) by citing the reasons of delay. The ITR will be treated valid and processed by the Income Tax Department only once the condonation request has been approved by the competent Income Tax Authority.”

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However, this remedy depends on the income tax authorities’ discretion. If the request is cancelled, the taxpayer must pay a penalty for belated filing. According to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) circular in June 2015, a condonation request cannot be entertained after six years from the end of the assessment year for which the request is raised.

Therefore, after filing your ITR, recheck the file, and after satisfying yourself that the details you provided are complete and correct, verify it immediately.

How To Verify?

Filing and verifying ITR has become easy with digitalisation. Taxpayers can e-verify the ITR with an Aadhaar-linked mobile number and OTP, a digital signature certificate (DSC), or an electronic verification code (EVC) via net banking. For EVC, one should have a pre-validated bank or demat account linked to it. One can also verify the tax return offline. For this, one must take a printout of the ITR-V form and send it to the Central Processing Unit (CPC) in Bengaluru. The taxpayer must ensure that the physical copy of the ITR reaches the CPC on time.

In online verification, the tax authorities will send a text message to the taxpayer on the phone or via email, confirming the receipt of the request.

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Why You Should Timely Verify Your ITR?

A delay in verifying your tax return will be treated as a delay in filing ITR, and an appropriate penalty will be imposed. As per the Income Tax Act, “If an assessee, required to furnish ITR under section 139, fails to furnish ITR within the due date prescribed under section 139(1), then, as per section 234F, he will be required to pay a fee of Rs 5,000 prescribed under section 139(1). However, it shall be Rs 1,000 if the total income of an assessee does not exceed Rs 5 lakh.”

Verifying your ITR on time is crucial to avoid a penalty of Rs 5,000 for belated returns or sending a condonation request. If the income is up to Rs 5 lakh, it will attract a fee of Rs 1,000.