Government Collects Additional Rs 9,118 Crore as 9 Million Taxpayers Submit Updated ITRs

New Delhi, March 25 (NationPress) More than nine million updated Income Tax Returns have been submitted over the past four years, enabling the government to generate an extra Rs 9,118 crore. This achievement highlights the effectiveness of the voluntary compliance scheme initiated by the government, as shared in Parliament.

The government introduced the option for taxpayers to file updated I-T returns (ITR-U) in 2022, allowing submissions up to two years from the relevant assessment year (AY) with the payment of additional income tax, aimed at fostering voluntary compliance.

From AY 2021-22 to AY 2024-25, over 9.176 million ITR-Us were filed, resulting in additional tax revenue of Rs 9,118 crore, as reported by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary in a written response to the Lok Sabha.

In the ongoing assessment year (2024-25) up to February 28, approximately 464,000 updated ITRs have been submitted, generating tax payments of Rs 431.20 crore, according to the minister.

The Finance Bill of 2025 proposes to extend the deadline for filing updated returns to four years from the relevant assessment year, acknowledging the scheme's successful implementation.

During AY 2023-24, over 2.979 million ITR-Us were filed, yielding an additional tax of Rs 2,947 crore.

In AY 2022-23 and AY 2021-22, 4.007 million and 1.724 million updated ITRs were filed, leading to additional tax revenues of Rs 3,940 crore and Rs 1,799.76 crore, respectively.

In response to another inquiry, the minister noted that the Union Cabinet has approved the 'Incentive Scheme for Promotion of Low-Value BHIM-UPI Transactions (Person to Merchant - P2M)' for the financial year 2024-25. This initiative aligns with the government's objective to enhance digital payments, motivate small merchants to adopt UPI, and foster financial inclusion.

Advancing digital payments is a crucial component of the government’s strategy for financial inclusion, providing diverse payment options for the general public.

The costs incurred by the digital payment sector for delivering services to customers and merchants are recouped through the Merchant Discount Rate (MDR). This MDR is a fee that merchants and businesses must pay to a payment processing company on debit or credit card transactions, generally expressed as a percentage of the transaction amount, the minister stated.

According to the RBI, an MDR of up to 0.90 percent of the transaction value is applicable across all card networks for debit cards. As per NPCI, an MDR of up to 0.30 percent applies for UPI P2M (Person to Merchant) transactions. To promote digital transactions, since January 2020, the MDR has been set to zero for RuPay Debit Card and BHIM-UPI transactions, the minister added.