This year, taxpayers and tax professionals have set a new record for filing Income-tax Returns (ITRs). By July 31, 2024, over 7.28 crore ITRs were submitted for the Assessment Year (AY) 2024-25. That’s a 7.5% increase from the 6.77 crore ITRs filed by the same date last year. Let’s break down this year’s data and compare it with the past five years.
Record-Breaking Number of ITRs
This year has seen a huge rise in the number of ITRs filed, showing how taxpayers are getting more organized and tech-savvy.
Shift to the New Tax Regime
A big trend this year is the move to the New Tax Regime. Out of the 7.28 crore ITRs, 5.27 crore chose this new regime, while 2.01 crore went with the Old Tax Regime. This means about 72% of taxpayers are now using the new tax structure, with 28% sticking with the old one. The New Tax Regime is simpler and has fewer tax slabs, which might be why so many people are switching.
Busy Filing Day and E-Filing Stats
The busiest day was July 31, 2024, the deadline for most taxpayers. On this day alone, over 69.92 lakh ITRs were filed. The e-filing portal was extremely busy, with the highest traffic between 7:00 PM and 8:00 PM, handling 5.07 lakh submissions in that hour. The peak filing rate was 917 per second on July 17, 2024, at 8:13:54 AM, and 9,367 per minute on July 31, 2024, at 8:08 PM.
Growth in First-Time Filers
This year also saw a significant number of first-time filers, with 58.57 lakh ITRs submitted by people filing for the first time. Here’s how the filings break down for AY 2024-25:
- ITR-1: 3.34 crore (45.77%)
- ITR-2: 1.09 crore (14.93%)
- ITR-3: 91.10 lakh (12.50%)
- ITR-4: 1.88 crore (25.77%)
- ITR-5 to ITR-7: 7.48 lakh (1.03%)
About 43.82% of these returns were filed online through the e-filing portal. Despite the high volume, the portal handled everything well, with 3.2 crore successful logins on the deadline day.
E-Verification and Refunds
E-verification is an important step for processing ITRs and issuing refunds. As of July 31, 2024, over 6.21 crore ITRs have been e-verified, with more than 5.81 crore (93.56%) using Aadhaar-based OTPs. Processing has already started for over 2.69 crore ITRs (43.34%) for AY 2024-25. Also, 91.94 lakh challans were processed in July 2024 through the TIN 2.0 payment system, making a total of 1.64 crore challans since April 1, 2024.
Support and Helpdesk
The e-filing Helpdesk team has been busy answering 10.64 lakh queries from taxpayers up to July 31, 2024. They provided help through calls, live chats, WebEx sessions, and co-browsing. They also managed queries on X (formerly Twitter) and solved over 1.07 lakh emails, with a resolution rate of 99.97%.
Conclusion
This year’s record number of ITRs shows how efficient and adaptable both taxpayers and the e-filing system have become. The increase in filings and the smooth handling of the high volume are great signs of progress in tax compliance and digital integration.
