Kolkata, June 13: COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented, once in a lifetime crisis. Apart from everything else, it has also affected our finances. While the government has announced several measures to ease the burden on business and industries, there have been some major announcements when it comes to Income Tax too.

The last date for making various investments or payments under section 80C , 80D and 80G is normally March 31. This means that those who have not been able to make necessary investments due to the lockdown can now do so by June 30.

In March this date had been extended to June 30, 2020. The last date of ITR filing has also been extended to November 30, 2020 from July 31, 2020. The government has also extended the last day of issue of Form 16 from June 10, 2020 to June 30, 2020.

Another important thing to note here is a separate schedule, Schedule DI. The latest ITR-1 form released by the Income Tax department is now available on the income tax website. This is the return form that most individual tax payers use in India. Those who fulfil certain criteria can file ITR-1. This form can be used by an Indian resident to report income from salary, one house property and agricultural income with an upper limit of Rs 5,000. However, resident individuals are eligible to use ITR-1 only of their income does not exceed Rs 50 lakh.

Under Schedule DI, this from allows deductions on any tax savings investments that an individual has made in the period between April 1 2020 and June 30, 2020. This is in line with the Government extending the tax saving deadline to June 30, earlier.

Says Kapil Rana, Founder & Chairman, HostBooks Limited, “Due to the COVID-19 lockdown most of the taxpayers were unable to execute investments and financial planning. It is experienced that in current type of disturbed situation individual as well as business tend to be extreme cautious in their spending and investment, try to accumulate maximum liquidity available with themselves, resulting a plummet liquid circulation in the ecosystem. To circumvent such a situation and to hasten the investment cum financing sentiments within the tax payers government is also putting its best efforts and have introduced several attractive financial schemes. Introduction of Schedule DI is one of the key initiative, a masterstroke and it serves both purposes."