Because of the Covid 19 pandemic, certain relaxations have been provided by CBDT with respect to filing of various TDS returns.
As per the Taxation and Other Law (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020 dated 31st March 2020, any due date under the income tax act which falls within 20th day of March 2020 i.e., 20th March 2020 to 29th day of June 2020 i.e., 29th June 2020 shall stands extended to 30th June 2020.
Let us understand this with the help of a simple example. The due date of TDS return of Q4 of FY 2019-20 is 31st May 2020 which falls within 20th March 2020 and 29th June 2020. After this ordinance is passed, the same shall be extended till 30th June.
As the picture became clear and the situation worsened, the government came out with another notification dated 24th June 2020 to provide further extension and relaxations to the tax payers. In this ordinance, as per the first paragraph wherein it is mentioned that, “In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Taxation and Other
Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020 (2 of 2020) (hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance), the
Central Government hereby specifies , for the purposes of the said sub-section (1),-
(i) the 31st day of December, 2020 shall be the end date of the period during which the time limit specified in, or prescribed or notified under, the specified Act falls for the completion or compliance of such action as specified under the said sub-section; and
(ii) the 31st day of March, 2021 shall be the end date to which the time limit for completion or compliance of such action shall stand extended”
Thus, with this ordinance the government extended the date of 29th June 2020 to 31st December 2020 and the filing date of 30th June 2020 to 31st March 2021. However, this ordinance came with certain exceptions such as:
- Due date of filing of TDS/TCS return for the quarter ending 31st March 2020 where the deductor/collector is government department is 15th July 2020.
- Due date of filing of TDS/TCS return for the quarter ending 31st March 2020 where the deductor/collector is not government department is 31st July 2020.
- Due date for furnishing form 16/16A for FY 2019-20 is 15th August 2020.
Further, the due dates of furnishing TDS return of Q1 and Q2 of FY 2020-21 falls within 31st December 2020. Thus, as per the ordinance, they stand extended to 31st March 2021.
However, the due date for Q3 (FY 2020-21) TDS return would still remain 31st January 2021 as this is after 31st December 2020 and thus, is not covered by the notification.
