Income Tax Department counts 7.8 crore returns for AY 2026-27 by the 31 August cut-off

More than 7.8 crore income-tax returns for assessment year 2026-27 were on the system as of 31 August, the Income Tax Department said on Tuesday. Last year 7.3 crore returns had been filed by 16 September 2025, the extended deadline then used for non-audit cases. This year's print beat that mark before September began.

The department thanked taxpayers and professionals in a post on X. Inside the 7.8 crore are more than 5.9 crore ITR-1 and ITR-2 forms completed by 31 July, the due date for most salaried and simple-income filers. More than 5.71 crore returns have already been processed.

31 August was the new statutory deadline for people with business or professional income who do not need an audit. The Finance Act, 2026, rewrote the calendar in the Income-tax Act. Salaried and other unspecified non-audit taxpayers file by 31 July. Non-audit businesses and professionals get the extra month to 31 August. Companies and others who must have accounts audited file by 31 October. Taxpayers under the transfer-pricing rule in Section 92E file by 30 November.

Who can still file

Anyone who missed 31 August can submit a belated return until 31 December 2026, or until assessment is completed, whichever comes first. Interest and late fees still apply. The October and November windows are not extensions for the August cohort. They belong to audit and transfer-pricing cases that were never due this week.

The comparison with last September is the department's chosen benchmark. An earlier cut-off plus a higher count is the claim. It does not yet say how many of the 7.8 crore are original filings against how many are revisions, or how the 5.71 crore processed returns have split between refunds and demands. Those breakdowns will show whether the new calendar simply pulled filings forward or actually widened the tax base.

What the new calendar does

Splitting non-audit filers into a July group and an August group was meant to reduce the single-night crash that used to hit the portal. The 5.9 crore July forms suggest the first gate worked. The jump to 7.8 crore by 31 August shows the business-and-profession cohort used the second gate. Audit season in October will be the third test. If that load is cleaner than in past years, the Finance Act change will have done the job it was sold to do.

Until the department publishes category-wise tables, 7.8 crore is a headline with a calendar attached. The useful number for October is how many of those returns have been processed without a defect notice. That figure, not the X post, is what taxpayers will feel.