Circular No. 21/2024 — Extension of due date for furnishing belated/revised return of income for the assessment y

What this is

Circular No. 21/2024 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 31 December 2024. Its subject is Extension of due date for furnishing belated/revised return of income for the assessment year 2024 25 in certain cases.

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

Extends the last date for a belated return under sub-section (4) of section 139 and for a revised return under sub-section (5) of section 139, for assessment year 2024-25, from 31 December 2024 to 15 January 2025. The extension is confined to resident individuals. It is given under section 119.

Why it was issued

The circular gives no reason beyond the Board's exercise of its section 119 power.

Who it reaches

Resident individuals who missed the original return date for assessment year 2024-25
Resident individuals correcting an assessment year 2024-25 return already filed
Return preparers working the December-January belated filing window

The provisions it speaks to

Left, the provision of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as the instrument itself names it. Right, the section of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that the department’s own concordance maps it to — which is where the same ground is now covered.

Under the 1961 Act	Now
s.119	s.239
s.139	s.2, s.263, s.349

The instrument, as the Board published it

The department publishes this one only as a PDF, so the words below were read out of that PDF by machine. That reading can carry its own mistakes — a misread number, a broken line. Check the signed document before you rely on a figure in it.

F. No. 225/205/2024IITA-II
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Direct Taxes
*****
Circular No. 21/2024
New Delhi, dated 31st December, 2024
Subject: - Extension of due date for furnishing belated/revised return of income for the Assessment Year 2024-25 in certain cases- reg.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes ('the CBDT'), in exercise of its powers under section 119 of the Income-tax Act,1961 ('the Act'), extends the last date for furnishing belated return of income under sub-section (4) of section 139 of the Act or for furnishing revised return of income under sub-section (5) of section 139 of the Act for the Assessment Year 2024-25 in the case of resident individuals from 31 st December, 2024 to 15th January, 2025.

/s~/ (Dr. Castro Jayaprakash. T)
Under Secretary to the Government of India

Copy to:
1. PS to F .M.! PS to MoS (F)
2. PS to Revenue Secretary
3. Chairman (CBDT)& All Members of CBDT
4. All Pro CCsIT/CCsITlPr. DGsIT/DGsIT
5. All Joint Secretaries/CsIT, CBDT
6. DirectorslDeputy SecretarieslUnder Secretaries of CBDT
7. Web Manager, with a request to place the order on official Income-tax website
8. CIT (M&TP), Official Spokesperson of CBDT with a request to publicize widely
9. JCIT, Data Base Cell for placing it on irsofficersonline.gov.in
10. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, IP Estate, New Delhi
11. All Chambers of Commerce
12. The Guard File

f~~~~ (Dr. Cast~ aprakash.T)
Under Secretary to the Government of India

What to watch

The relief is for resident individuals only - a firm, a company, a Hindu undivided family or a non-resident individual is outside it.
It moves the belated and revised return date alone; no other compliance date is extended.
The extended date, 15 January 2025, has passed, so the circular now serves only to defend a return filed within that window.
The circular says nothing about interest or the fee for late filing, so filing within the extension does not by itself answer a levy raised on the original date.

Where you meet it

Where an assessment year 2024-25 belated or revised return filed in early January 2025 is treated as out of time in processing under section 143(1), or a fee for late filing is raised on it.

What it names

It mentions. Circular No. 21/2024

On the same provision

Other instruments in this library that name the same provision of the 1961 Act. They are not necessarily still operative, and a later one may have replaced an earlier one without saying so.

Circular No. 6/2026 — Condonation of delay in filing Form No. 10AB electronically for approval under clause(ii) of the first proviso to sectio 2 July 2026
Circular No. 2/2026 — Order under section 119 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 for extension of timeline for issuance of tax deducted at source (TD 25 March 2026
Circular No.15/2025 — Extension of timelines for filing of various reports of audit and income tax returns ITRS for the assessment year 2025 2 29 October 2025
Circular No. 10/2025 — Relaxation of time limit for processing of returns of income filed electronically which were incorrectly invalidated by 28 July 2025
Circular No. 7/2025 — Relaxation of time limit for processing of valid returns of income filed electronically pursuant to order u/s 119(2)(b) 25 June 2025
Circular No. 6/2025 — Extension of due date for furnishing return of income for the Assessment Year 2025-26 27 May 2025

← Circular No. 1/2025 · Circular No. 20/2024 →

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.