The government on Monday extended the deadline for filing the Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the financial year 2016-17. The new deadline has been set at August 5.

The announcement was made by the the Income Tax department’s verified Twitter handle. The I-T department cited ‘difficulties faced by taxpayers’ as the reason behind the extension.

This comes after news agency PTI on Sunday had quoted a top official saying that there will be no extension beyond July 31 in the last date for filing of ITR.
 
“The last date for filing of ITRs remains July 31. There are no plans to extend this deadline. The department has already received over 2 crore returns filed electronically. The department requests taxpayers to file their return in time,” the official had said.

On reports of the e-filing website facing some glitches, the official said that no major glitches have been reported with the department’s e-filing website – http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/ – barring a few times when the portal was “interrupted for maintenance”.

However, many taxpayers were facing difficulty in filing their returns and they complained of facing problems in the website even on Monday.

The department had also issued advertisements in leading national dailies in the last few days stating that taxpayers should disclose their income “correctly” and file their ITRs on or before July 31.