Case law › Circulars › 2012 › Press Release [NO. 402/92/2006-MC (20 OF 2012)], dated 1-8-2012

CBDT circular 1 August 2012

Press Release [NO. 402/92/2006-MC (20 OF 2012)], dated 1-8-2012

CBDT's Clarification on extension of due date of filing of returns

What this is

Press Release [NO. 402/92/2006-MC (20 OF 2012)], dated 1-8-2012 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 1 August 2012. Its subject is CBDT's Clarification on extension of due date of filing of returns.

This is an extension of time. It moves a date that the Act or the Rules otherwise fix, and it does so only for the compliance and the period it names — not for anything else that happens to fall due at the same time.

What it does

Corrects a media report which had said that the extension of the due date to 31 August 2012 applied only to returns that were to be filed electronically by 31 July 2012. The Board clarifies that the notification issued on 31 July 2012 extended the due date for all returns for assessment year 2012-13 that were due to be filed by 31 July 2012, to 31 August 2012.

Why it was issued

A section of the media had reported the extension too narrowly, as reaching only e-filed returns.

Who it reaches

All assessees whose return for assessment year 2012-13 was due on 31 July 2012
Taxpayers filing on paper who might have thought the extension did not reach them

The instrument, as the Board published it

The words below are the department’s own, reproduced from its published text. Where the department’s copy carried a publisher’s notes after the instrument, those are not reproduced.

CBDT's Clarification on extension of due date of filing of returns
PRESS RELEASE [No. 402/92/2006-MC (20 of 2012)], dated 1-8-2012
A section of Media has reported that the Central Board of Direct Taxes has extended 'due date' of filing of returns to 31st August, 2012 in respect of only those returns which were to be e-filed by 31st July, 2012. It is clarified that the notification issued by the Board on 31st July, 2012 has extended the 'due date' of filing of all returns for the Assessment Year 2012-13 which were due to be filed by 31st July, 2012 to 31st August, 2012.
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What to watch

The operative instrument is the notification of 31 July 2012; this press release only removes a misreading of it.
The extension covers only returns whose original due date was 31 July 2012, not the later dates for audit cases.
The extended date of 31 August 2012 has long passed and the clarification is spent.
Nothing is said here about interest under section 234A, which follows the notification and the Act, not this release.

Where you meet it

In an old dispute over whether an assessment year 2012-13 return filed in August 2012 on paper was within time.

← Press Release, dated 1-8-2012 · Circular No. 05/2012 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.