The Direct Tax Committee of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has raised serious concerns regarding technical issues plaguing the Income Tax E-filing Portal, as outlined in a letter dated September 22, 2025, addressed to Shri Sanjay Bahadur, Member (IT) of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. With the deadline for filing tax audit reports and ITRs fast approaching on September 30, 2025, taxpayers are facing significant hurdles that threaten timely compliance.
Key Issues Identified by ICAI
ICAI highlighted multiple challenges, including frequent login failures, delayed OTP delivery and forced logouts during profile switches. The portal's slow speed and "Service Unavailable" errors have compounded problems, especially for uploading Tax Audit Reports and Form 3CA-3CD/3CB-3CD, released as late as July 18, 2025. Other issues include validation errors, difficulties in affixing DSC, and the inability to upload voluminous data in TDS schedules like Form 26AS.
For ITR filing, the Excel utilities for ITR-5 and ITR-7, enabled on August 2025, have been criticized for being slow and incompatible, with online modes only recently activated on September 19, 2025. Additionally, Form 10AB submissions for trust renewals due by October 31, 2025, are marred by OTP and DSC verification failures, risking data loss and submission delays.
Impact on Taxpayers
With only 3.77 lakh tax audit reports filed this year (10% of last year's count), the glitches have severely hampered compliance. The letter also notes interest and fee calculations under sections 234A and 234F being incorrectly applied, even for returns due on October 31, 2025, affecting loss carry-forward options.Call for ActionICAI has requested urgent measures to resolve these issues and proposed a personal meeting with the CBDT to discuss solutions. The institute emphasized the need for a smoother filing process to support taxpayers and ensure effective tax compliance.
Official Representation of the Letter is as follows
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