Filed Your Income Tax Return? Here is What Happens Next

So you have filed your Income Tax Returns (ITR) for this year and want to know what lies ahead. You have come to the right place. But first a reminder if you haven’t filed the ITR for AY 2020-21yet, the government has extended the last dates to do so. For non-audit cases, the last date to file Income Tax Returns is now December 31, 2020 and for audit cases it is January 31, 2021.

Now, coming back to what happens after you file your returns. It goes through a long process of scrutiny and checks. This is followed by a validation by the tax officers and the taxpayer is communicated if there is any liability.

— The first thing for you to do after filing your Income Tax returns is to ensure that the process is complete. The Tax department will send a notice for corrections if there is any mistake of something is amiss.

— The tax department does a scrutiny assessment of the returns filed at its Centralised Processing Centre (CPC). This process is meant to find out cases where taxpayers have underreported their income or any other issue. If there are issues with the ITR, the authorities send a questionnaire to the taxpayer and make adjustments to the income if they are not satisfied with the reply.

— If the tax authorities suspect that there are some taxable income pertaining to any earlier year has not been accounted for, then they may go for a reassessment. This can involve income in the last 5 years, it all depends on the tax authorities

— Under the new faceless tax assessment scheme of the government, there is no need for the taxpayer to appear before the tax officers. To ensure a seamless and transparent process nowadays the identity of the tax officials is kept confidential.

— After the reassessment, the next process is the collection of the remaining dues. If the tax authorities have reasons to believe that the taxpayer have not complied with the rules, they can initiate penalty proceedings.

— The taxpayer can file a request for corrections if he feels that there have been errors on part of the income tax officials. Under the Income Tax laws, a taxpayer is free to take the appeal route for any kind of grievance.

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