In a tweet, the finance ministry announced the extension of the deadline to file income tax returns for the financial year 2017-18 (AY 2018-19) to 31 August 2018. The earlier deadline was set at 31 July 2018 for individual taxpayers.

The ministry tweeted, " Upon consideration of the matter, the Central Board of Direct Taxes extends the due date for filing of Income Tax Returns from July 31, 2018 to August 31, 2018 in respect of the said categories of taxpayers."

For the assessment year 2018-19 (financial year 2017-18), new ITR forms were introduced in the month of April and taxpayers should now file those applicable to them online only. A penalty system for the late filing of the ITR was also introduced which could make individual taxpayers liable to pay up to Rs 10,000 as a penalty on missing the deadline.

Further, the facility to e-verify income tax returns filing using Aadhar OTP has also been temporarily down. The verification can be completed up to 120 days after the ITR filing is completed.