Due date for filing TDS return for Quarter 3 ending 31.12.2020 extended under Income tax act from 31.01.2021 to 31.03.2021??

As we had mentioned in our earlier post that Income tax department has extended various due dates under Income tax act including Income tax return, Tax audit report etc.

Now, income tax department has released a notification which talks about extending various due date under income tax to 31.03.2021.

The notification mentioned above is referring to the “THE TAXATION AND OTHER LAWS (RELAXATION AND
AMENDMENT OF CERTAIN PROVISIONS) ACT, 2020” wherein they have mentioned extension of various due dates.

In the notification Dt. 31.12.2020, reference has been made to 2 clauses of the above act: clause (a) and clause (b) where clause (a) refers to extension of due date for various order etc under the Act and clause (b) refers to time limit for filing return, report or reply under the Act.

Earlier the due date for passing of any order in clause (a) was extended to 31.12.2020 and time limit for clause (b) was extended in a staggered manner.

Now vide notification Dt. 31.12.2020, CBDT has extended the due date mentioned in clause (a) i.e. due date for passing order or issuing notice under the Act to 31.03.2021 whereas in clause (b) they have just extended the due date for filing of income tax return and audit report as we have already discussed in our earlier post.

People while reading the above notification are misinterpreting the language and hence there is a misconception that due date for filing of TDS return for Q3 has also been extended to 31.03.2021 which is not the case, although due date for TDS return for Q1 and Q2 of FY 2020-21 is 31.03.2021 and hence the due date for filing of TDS return for Q3 is still 31.01.2021.

Same is also prevalent in the yearly compliance calendar issued by Income tax department which we shall discuss in our next post.

To download the notification 93/2020 Dt. 31.12.2020: CLICK HERE.