Govt. extends deadline for tax return submissions following system overload

The government has decided to extend the deadline for filing income tax returns as the tax filing system is overloaded with the majority of people rushing to submit their tax returns before November 30 deadline.

With the majority of taxpayers attempting to submit their income tax returns for 2020/2021 financial year at the last moment, the State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya in a media release yesterday said that tax filing software of Inland Revenue Department (IRD) was overloaded on November 30, owing to high traffic. 

Although, the issue was resolved later on, he noted that some were unable to submit their tax returns before the deadline. Therefore, the Minister announced that no penalties would be imposed on anyone who got delayed to submit their tax returns due to this issue. According to the State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe, the deadline set for income tax submissions for 2020/2021 FY has been extended by another week.

Siyambalapitiya urged the public to submit their tax returns before awaiting until the last moment in order avert such issues in the future.