If you thought by filing your income tax e-return the job was done, you were mistaken. The income tax department’s latest records show out of nearly 8.17 million e-returns filed without digital signatures for the assessment year 2010-11 till October 31, about 500,000 signed returns (ITR-Vs) are yet to reach the department, rendering the filing process invalid.

Assessees who do not have digital signatures are required to send signed returns (ITR-Vs) through ordinary post or speed post to the income tax department’s central processing centre (CPC) at Bangalore within two months of filing e-returns.

According to a senior department official, the return process would be completed in those cases only when the department got the ITR-Vs through post. He said of the 500,000 missing returns, many assessees reported they had already sent their ITR-Vs by post — some more than once — but they didn’t reach the department. “We are looking at ways to address this issue,” said the official.

Only those filing returns with digital signatures need not send their signed returns to the department. Of the nearly 8.82 million e-returns filed for assessment year 2010-11 till October 31, 655,000 were filed with digital signatures.

The department has received 7.67 million signed returns out of around 8.17 million e-returns filed without digital signatures for the same period. So, the return filing process of about 500,000 assessees is in limbo.

There is always a chance of such cases getting picked up for scrutiny in the absence of a valid return. On its part, the department reminds assessees about missing ITR-Vs by email and also has provisions to extend the time for filing ITR-Vs.

The substantial number of missing ITR-Vs despite these provisions has forced the department to look at options to avoid such situations. “Allowing uploading of signed and scanned returns instead of sending ITR-Vs by post will not be legally valid and creating collection centres at various locations would involve manpower.”

The department may look at the option of completely doing away with ITR-Vs in the coming years,” said the official.

Removing the requirement of sending signed returns through post would certainly help a large number of taxpayers as the number of people opting for e-returns is set to grow significantly. The total number of returns filed in 2010-11, both electronically and manually, was around 29.6 million. Of that, the number of returns filed electronically was around 9.1 million.

The official said the trend suggested the efforts to expand the e-return platform had started yielding results and returns filed electronically appeared set to cross the 10 million mark in 2011-12. (Business Standard)