Income tax returns filed during the ongoing fiscal year have jumped 5 per cent to 5.95 crore as more businesses and entities filed annual income statements by January 10, the IT Department said.

The ITR filing deadline for individuals ended on January 10 while for companies it is till February 15.

The tax department in a tweet said 5.95 crore ITRs for Assessment Year 2020-21 were filed till January 10, 2021, as compared to 5.67 crore ITRs filed for the previous Assessment Year by September 10, 2019.

The total returns for 2019-20 are 33.35 lakh higher than the previous year as total ITRs filed stood at 5.61 crore on the last date which was August 31, 2019.

“Consistent with our endeavour to keep all stakeholders continuously informed about daily figures of ITRs filed over the past few days,we gratefully acknowledge the efforts of our taxpayers &tax professionals &are happy to share the data of ITRs filed for AY2020-21 upto 10.01.2021,” it said sharing the data of ITRs filed for AY2020-21 up to January 10, 2021.

An analysis of the data showed that filing of tax returns by individuals for 2019-20 has slowed in the current year, while filing by businesses and trusts has increased.

Over 2.99 crore ITR-1 (filed by resident individuals having income less than Rs 50 lakh in a year) were filed till January 10 this year, lower than the 3.11 crore filed till September 10, 2019.

Over 1.49 crore ITR-4 were filed till January 10, as compared to 1.29 crore filed till September 10, 2019.

Returns in ITR-1 Sahaj are filed by individuals whose total income does not exceed Rs 50 lakh, while form ITR-4 Sugam is meant for individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) and firms (other than Limited Liability Partnership) having a total income of up to Rs 50 lakh and having presumptive income from business and profession.

Over 46.12 lakh ITR-2 (filed by people having income from residential property, capital gains and foreign assets) were filed till January 10. ITR-5 (filed by LLP and Association of Persons) filings stood at 10.50 lakh, while ITR-6 (by businesses) filings were at 4.72 lakh.

Last year, ITR-6 filings till September 10, 2019, were 49,398. ITR-5 filings were 5.89 lakh.

ITR-7 (filed by persons having income derived from property held under trust) filings stood at 1.46 lakh till January 10, 2021, as compared to 65,298 last year.

Due to difficulties faced by taxpayers owing to the pandemic, the government pushed the deadline for filing ITR thrice: first from the normal deadline of July 31 to November 30, 2020, and then to December 31, 2020.

On December 30 last year, the government extended the deadline to file ITR for individuals by 10 days to January 10 and for businesses till February 15.

The Income Tax Department on Monday rejected demand for further extension of the deadline for filing returns where audit is required beyond February 15.