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The total number of ITRs (income tax returns) for the assessment year (AY) 2024-25, filed till July 31, has surged to a record high of 7.28 crore, according to figures released by the Finance Ministry on Friday.  

This represents a 7.5 per cent jump over the 6.77 crore ITRs that were filed for AY 2023-24 till July 31 last year.

The Income Tax Department also received 58.57 lakh ITRs till July 31 this year from first-time filers which is considered an indication of the widening tax base in a growing economy.

An increasing number of taxpayers have opted for the New Tax Regime this year. Out of the total ITRs of 7.28 crore filed for AY 2024-25, 5.27 crore have been filed in the new tax regime compared to 2.01 crore ITRs filed in the old tax regime. Thus, about 72 per cent of taxpayers have opted for the new tax regime, while 28 per cent continue to be in the old tax regime, the Finance Ministry said.

The filing of ITRs peaked on July 31 (the due date for salaried taxpayers and other non-tax audit cases) with over 69.92 lakh ITRs being filed on a single day. The e-filing portal also clocked its highest per hour rate of 5.07 lakh ITR filings between 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. on July 31.

The highest per second rate of ITR filing was 917 (08.13.54 a.m. on July 17) and the highest per minute rate of ITR filing was 9,367 (8.08 p.m. on July 31).

In a historic first, ITRs (ITR-1, ITR-2, ITR-4, ITR-6) were deployed on the e-filing portal on the first day of the financial year (April 1, 2024). The ITR-3 and ITR-5 were also released earlier in comparison with the preceding financial years. Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs filed for A.Y. 2024-25, 45.77 per cent of ITRs are ITR-1 (3.34 crore), 14.93 per cent are ITR-2 (1.09 crore), 12.50 per cent are ITR-3 (91.10 lakh), 25.77 per cent are ITR-4 (1.88 crore) and 1.03 per cent are ITR-5 to ITR-7 (7.48 lakh).

Over 43.82 per cent of these ITRs have been filed using the online ITR utility available on the e-filing portal and the balance have been filed using offline ITR utilities, the Finance Ministry statement added.

In order to expedite refunds, over 6.21 crore ITRs have already been e-verified, out of which more than 5.81 crore are through Aadhaar-based OTP (93.56 per cent). Of the e-verified ITRs, more than 2.69 crore ITRs for the AY 2024-2025 have been processed (43.34 per cent) till July 31. Over 91.94 lakh challans have been received through TIN 2.0 payment system in July 2024 (for AY 2024-25), while total number of challans filed through TIN 2.0 since April 1 stands at 1.64 crore (for AY 2024-25), the official statement said.

The statement also urges taxpayers, who for any reason, missed filing their ITR within the due date, to complete their filing expeditiously.