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NEW DELHI

02 September 2018 00:34 IST

Many filed under presumptive scheme

The total number of income tax returns (ITRs) e-filed up to August 31, 2018, was 5.42 crore as against 3.17 crore up to August 31, 2017, marking an increase of 70.86%.

Almost 34.95 lakh returns were e-filed on August 31, 2018.

A remarkable increase was seen in the number of ITRs filed by salaried individuals, and also those availing the benefit of the Presumptive Taxation Scheme, the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

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The total number of e-returns of salaried individual taxpayers filed till August 31 increased to 3.37 crore from the 2.19 crore returns filed during the corresponding period in 2017, registering a growth of almost 54%.

As many as 1.17 crore ITRs were e-filed by persons availing the benefit of Presumptive Tax, compared to 14.93 lakh returns filed up to August, 2017, registering a massive eight-fold jump.

Steadily moving

This is indicative of an India moving steadily towards a more tax compliant society, and reflects the impact of continuous leveraging of technology to improve taxpayer service delivery, the statement said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had in Budget 2018-19 flagged the tax mop-up from entities under the Presumptive Taxation Scheme.

Under this scheme, 41% more returns were filed during this year, which shows that many more persons are joining the tax net under the simplified scheme. However, the turnover shown is still not encouraging, he had said.

The government had liberalised the presumptive income scheme for small traders and entrepreneurs with annual turnover of less than ₹2 crore and introduced a similar scheme for professionals with annual turnover of less than ₹ 50 lakh, with the hope that there would be significant increase in compliance.

The I-T Department had received 44.72 lakh returns for assessment year 2017-18.