Company ITR Filing Guide: ITR-6, Tax Audit & Due Dates

Quick answer

A company files its income tax return in ITR-6 (companies not claiming the section 11 exemption) for assessment year 2026-27, every year, regardless of profit or activity. It is prepared from audited financial statements, and it is separate from your MCA/ROC filings (AOC-4, MGT-7). Where turnover crosses the threshold, a tax audit report is furnished a month before the return. The return itself is due 31 October — 30 November where the transfer-pricing report applies.

First, which year are you filing for

Get this wrong and every answer below it is wrong too.

The Income-tax Act, 2025 commenced on 1 April 2026 under its own section 1(3) — section 1(2) is the extent clause, not the commencement clause — and it governs tax year 2026-27, which is FY 2026-27. Assessment year 2026-27 is FY 2025-26 and remains governed entirely by the Income-tax Act, 1961, including where a notice, assessment or appeal begins after 1 April 2026: section 536(2)(c) of the new Act keeps the repealed Act alive for a tax year beginning before 1 April 2026.

The clearest proof is the Finance Act, 2026 itself, which charges both years in one enactment: section 2(1) charges assessment year 2026-27 under the 1961 Act at the rates in Part I-A of the First Schedule, and section 3(1) charges tax year 2026-27 under the Income-tax Act, 2025 at the rates in Part I-B. Two charging sections, two rate schedules, two independent obligations in one calendar year. The wider picture is in our guide to the Income-tax Act, 2025 for business owners.

ITR-6 and what feeds it

ITR-6 is filed from your audited financial statements. The sequence is: finalise books, then the statutory audit, then the tax audit if one applies, then the return. The numbers must be consistent across all of them, because the same figures reach the Income Tax Department through the return and the tax audit report, and reach the MCA through AOC-4.

The working order, and why it is an order

Each step consumes the output of the one before it, so an early delay compounds:

1. Close the books — cut-offs, provisions, related-party balances, TDS reconciled to the credit statement.
2. Statutory audit — the audited financial statements are the source document for everything downstream.
3. Tax audit, if applicable — its particulars are drawn from the audited accounts, not prepared alongside them.
4. Compute the tax — book profit adjusted for disallowances, including any TDS disallowance (see below).
5. File, then verify. Verification is part of filing, not an afterthought.

Filing is mandatory whether or not the company traded

A company that made no profit files. A company that made a loss files. A company that did not trade at all files. The obligation is not conditioned on activity, and the substituted due-date table treats a company as a category in its own right, with no turnover or activity test attached.

There is a hard commercial reason for a dormant or loss-making company to file on time, too: carrying a loss forward depends on the return being furnished by the due date. Miss it and the loss stays on the balance sheet but stops being usable against future profits — usually a far larger number than any late fee.

Why we will not state a form number for tax year 2026-27

For assessment year 2026-27, the Department's returns-and-forms guidance confirms the numbering is unchanged: ITR-5 for firms and LLPs, ITR-6 for companies, ITR-7 for trusts. That is settled.

For tax year 2026-27, the return form is prescribed by the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and none of the sources cited on this page states its number. Those Rules renumbered a great deal — the tax audit report became Form No. 26, the annual information statement Form No. 168, the quarterly TDS statements Forms 138, 140, 143 and 144 — so assuming the return form kept its old label would be a guess dressed as a fact. Confirm it on the portal before you file.

Tax audit may apply

A tax audit is not a company-law concept and it is not automatic. It turns on turnover, and the thresholds are the same for both open years — section 44AB for assessment year 2026-27, section 63 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 for tax year 2026-27. The Department states they were retained as they were under the old Act.

Section 63(1) carries a second trigger — declaring presumptive income below the deemed figure — which our tax audit applicability guide works through in full, along with the books-of-account obligation that bites far below any audit threshold.

The ₹10 crore relief needs both limbs, not either

This is the most common way the relief is claimed wrongly. Both cash tests have to be satisfied: receipts at or under 5%, and payments at or under 5%. Pass one and fail the other and you are back on the ₹1 crore threshold — for most companies, an audit they had planned not to have. Payments is the limb that usually fails, because a company can bank every rupee it receives and still settle wages and small vendors in cash.

The report and the return are two filings, one month apart

For assessment year 2026-27 the Department states 30 September 2026 directly. For tax year 2026-27 the date follows from the statute: section 63(5)(a) defines the specified date as "the date one month prior to the due date for furnishing the return of income under section 263(1)". A company on the 31 October return date therefore has a 30 September report date, and a company filing by 30 November because transfer pricing applies gets a correspondingly later one.

The report is not filed with the return; it is filed before it, and the return then draws on it. Treating 31 October as the only date in the diary is how companies discover in mid-October that the report was due a fortnight earlier.

Getting the report onto the portal

In practice the accountant who signs the report uploads it from their own e-filing login, and the company then accepts it from its login. Until the company accepts, the report has been uploaded but not furnished — a report sitting unaccepted on the last day is, for this purpose, no report at all.

That sequence is portal mechanics, not statute, and none of the sources cited on this page states it. The Act fixes the date and the Rules fix the form; acceptance is how the portal implements them. Confirm the current steps on the portal, and leave several working days between upload and deadline rather than one.

Due dates

The Finance Act, 2026 substituted the due-date table into the 1961 Act by its section 5(a) and into the Income-tax Act, 2025 by its section 66(a), in identical terms. A company sits on the 31 October row whether or not a tax audit applies.

For the two years now open:

• Assessment year 2026-27 — report 30 September 2026; return 31 October 2026, or 30 November 2026 with transfer pricing.
• Tax year 2026-27 — report 30 September 2027; return 31 October 2027, or 30 November 2027 with transfer pricing.

Both are separate from AOC-4 and MGT-7, which run on the ROC's calendar.

Verification is part of filing

The time limit for e-verification, or for submitting the ITR-V, is 30 days from the date of filing. Where a return is uploaded within the due date but verified after 30 days, the verification date is treated as the date of furnishing — so an upload on 31 October verified in December is a late return, with the fee and the lost carry-forward that follow. A return never verified is treated as invalid, though condonation can be sought for a genuine delay.

Worked examples

Example 1 — the cash tests, and the calendar that follows from them

Assumptions: an Indian private limited company; FY 2025-26 turnover ₹6.4 crore; cash receipts 3% of total receipts; cash payments 7% of total payments; no transfer-pricing report applies; assessment year 2026-27, so the Income-tax Act, 1961 governs.

Turnover is above ₹1 crore, so the question is whether the ₹10 crore relief is available. Receipts pass at 3%. Payments fail at 7%. The relief needs both limbs, so the threshold stays at ₹1 crore, and ₹6.4 crore is comfortably above it. A tax audit applies.

The calendar that follows: statutory audit complete before the tax audit can be finalised; the tax audit report on Form 3CA or 3CB with Form 3CD by 30 September 2026; ITR-6 by 31 October 2026; e-verification within 30 days of filing.

Now change one fact. Hold cash payments at 4% instead of 7%. Both limbs pass, the threshold rises to ₹10 crore, ₹6.4 crore is below it, and no tax audit applies — but the return is still due 31 October 2026, because a company sits on that row regardless. The audit changed; the return date did not.

Example 2 — TDS deducted, deposited late, and disallowed in this return

Assumptions: tax year 2026-27, so the Income-tax Act, 2025 governs; the company pays ₹8,00,000 of professional fees to a resident consultant, credited in August 2026; the consultant has furnished a valid PAN and holds no lower-deduction certificate; the company deducts correctly but deposits the tax late.

Deduction sits under section 393(1), Table serial number 6(iii) — professional fees, 10%, threshold ₹50,000. Tax deducted is ₹80,000. Deposited on time, nothing further happens. Not deposited by the due date for furnishing the return — 31 October 2027 — three separate consequences land:

The ₹2,40,000 comes back in the tax year the tax is actually paid — a deferral, not a permanent loss, but a deferral on three times the tax that was withheld. Had the payee been a non-resident, section 35(b)(ii) would have disallowed the whole ₹8,00,000. For assessment year 2026-27 the equivalent is section 40(a)(ia), at the same 30%.

The company as a deductor, not just a taxpayer

Most of what goes wrong in a company's tax year does not go wrong in the return. It goes wrong in deductions made months earlier, and surfaces in the return as a disallowance.

The section split is not "everything is 393 now"

For payments where the earlier of credit or payment falls on or after 1 April 2026:

Salary sits outside section 393 entirely, and so does collection at source. Our section 393 crosswalk maps every old 194-series section to its new citation; the Department warns that quoting the old number on a new-Act statement may cause processing errors.

Statements, deposits and certificates

The quarterly statement dates keep the same rhythm under both regimes. For tax year 2026-27 they are enacted in Rule 219(4) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026:

The forms changed. Under Rule 219(1), salary deductions go on Form No. 138, other resident payments on Form No. 140, payments to non-residents, foreign companies and residents-but-not-ordinarily-resident on Form No. 144, collections on Form No. 143. Certificates under Rule 215 are Forms 130 to 133, Form 130 due by 15 June of the following financial year and the rest within 15 days of the statement date. FY 2025-26 quarters keep the old forms and the same dates. Deposit under Rule 218 is within 7 days from the end of the month, except a March credit or payment, due by 30 April.

The full catalogue is in our guide to the TDS forms under the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and the quarter-by-quarter mechanics are in the TDS return filing guide.

Advance tax runs alongside all of this

A company does not wait for the return to pay. Advance tax is payable where the liability for the year is ₹10,000 or more — section 208 of the 1961 Act, section 404 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, and the Department confirms the threshold is unchanged. So are the instalments: 15% by 15 June, 45% by 15 September, 75% by 15 December, 100% by 15 March, cumulatively.

Interest follows shortfalls, not the return date — section 234B / section 424 at 1% per month where advance tax is unpaid or below 90% of the assessed tax, and section 234C / section 425 for deferment. Advance tax follows the year of the income, not the date of payment: the 15 March 2026 instalment is a 1961-Act payment, the 15 June 2026 instalment a 2025-Act one.

Income tax vs ROC — do not confuse them

• Income tax (ITR-6) goes to the Income Tax Department, under the Income-tax Act.
• AOC-4 / MGT-7 go to the MCA / ROC, under company law.

Both are annual and mandatory, but they are different filings, to different authorities, on different dates, under different statutes, with different penalties. We run both calendars.

It runs in both directions:

The one thing they genuinely share is the numbers. The same audited financial statements feed the return and AOC-4, so a figure changed in one place and not the other is visible to both authorities. Company compliance covers running the two calendars together.

Late filing, and what each failure actually costs

Belated, revised and updated are three different windows

31 December is the belated boundary, not the revision boundary. Revision under section 139(5) runs to the end of the assessment year — 31 March 2027 for assessment year 2026-27. Because the two dates no longer coincide, a belated return can now itself be revised, which was not previously possible. Revising late attracts a fee. An updated return cannot increase a loss, reduce the tax liability or increase a refund, and only one may be furnished per tax year. Our revised, belated and updated return guide works through the choice.

The carry-forward is the expensive one

For a loss-making company the late fee is rarely the real cost. A return furnished after the due date loses the carry-forward of the loss, and there is no cure for it afterwards. A company sitting on a large accumulated loss that files a fortnight late can forfeit relief worth many multiples of anything the fee provisions impose. The 31 October date matters most in the years when the company made no money.

If the tax audit is not done

The two rules are different in shape, and neither replaced the other.

• Assessment year 2026-27 — section 271B of the Income-tax Act, 1961: a penalty computed as a percentage of turnover, subject to a cap. We state no percentage and no cap, because neither is in the primary material verified for this page. Confirm the current figures before relying on them.
• Tax year 2026-27 — section 428(c) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, as substituted by the Finance Act, 2026: ₹75,000 where the delay is up to one month, ₹1,50,000 thereafter. Where the section 172 transfer-pricing report is late, section 428(d) sets ₹50,000 up to one month and ₹1,00,000 thereafter.

Deductor failures

Under section 461(2) no penalty arises for a late statement where the tax, fee and interest were paid and the statement was delivered within one month of the prescribed time; the section 271H proviso is to the same effect for the earlier year. Neither waives the ₹200-a-day fee — only the penalty.

Common mistakes

• Assuming no profit means no filing. A loss return is mandatory, and it is what preserves the carry-forward.
• Treating 31 October as the only date. The tax audit report is due a month earlier, and missing it does not move the return date.
• Reading the ₹10 crore relief as an either/or test. Both cash limbs have to pass; payments is the one that usually fails.
• Assuming the return date moves because an audit applies. A company is on the 31 October row either way; only transfer pricing moves it, to 30 November.
• Uploading and forgetting to verify. Verify within 30 days, or the verification date becomes the filing date and the return is late.
• Confusing 31 December with the revision deadline. It is the belated boundary; revision for assessment year 2026-27 runs to 31 March 2027.
• Letting the ITR, the audited accounts and the ROC filings drift apart. Every unexplained difference is visible to at least two authorities.
• Missing the tax audit trigger, usually by looking at last year's turnover instead of this year's.
• Ignoring the deductor side until the return. An unpaid TDS liability becomes a 30% disallowance in the very return you are finalising.
• Assuming last year's ITR form number carries across to tax year 2026-27. Confirm it on the portal.

What this page does not claim

Being explicit about the edges is more useful than filling them in.

• No corporate tax rate, MAT or AMT rate, or surcharge figure. None was verified in the material behind this page. The rate that applies to a company depends on its regime election and its turnover, and must be confirmed for the year before any computation is relied on.
• No return form number for tax year 2026-27. ITR-6 is confirmed for assessment year 2026-27 only.
• No notification number or date for the assessment year 2026-27 return forms. The forms are live and their eligibility conditions are published; the notification reference was not captured.
• No text is quoted from the Income-tax Act, 1961. Old-Act section numbers appear as citations for the year they govern, never as quoted law, and no before-and-after comparison is drawn from them. In particular, section 428(c) is not presented as "replacing" section 271B — they are two rules for two different years.
• No transfer-pricing report date for assessment year 2026-27. The 30 November return date is confirmed; the accountant's report date under section 92E was not verified here.
• The portal acceptance workflow is practice, not law, and is flagged as such where it appears.
• The loss carry-forward point is stated as the general rule. Which specific heads of loss survive a late return should be checked against your own facts.
• Nothing here is a guarantee of an assessment outcome. Dates can be extended by notification, and provisions change at each Finance Act.

Where to go next

File from clean, audited books, consistent with your ROC filings, a month after the tax audit report rather than on the same day, and the company's tax year closes properly.

• Tax audit applicability — thresholds, the presumptive trigger and the books obligation in full.
• ROC annual filing checklist — the company-law calendar that runs beside this one.
• LLP ITR filing guide — the same year end for an LLP, where the tests differ.
• We also handle company ITR filing, tax audit support and TDS return filing.

Sources and currency

Applies to: India. Assessment year 2026-27 (income of FY 2025-26) is governed by the Income-tax Act, 1961, including for proceedings begun after 1 April 2026. Tax year 2026-27 (income of FY 2026-27) is governed by the Income-tax Act, 2025, which commenced on 1 April 2026 under its section 1(3). Both are live in the same calendar year, and this page answers for each separately.

Every date, threshold, form reference and fee on this page was read from the Gazette of India text of the Income-tax Act, 2025, the Finance Act, 2026 and the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and checked against the Income Tax Department's own e-filing guidance, on 20 August 2026. Where a point depends on portal mechanics rather than on the Act or the Rules, that is said plainly rather than presented as law. This page quotes no text from the Income-tax Act, 1961 and states no corporate tax rate — see "What this page does not claim". Income-tax provisions change at each Finance Act; confirm the current position before relying on a figure for a filing.

• Income-tax Act, 2025 (No. 30 of 2025) — Gazette of India Extraordinary, 21 August 2025 (s.1(3) commencement, s.35(b) disallowance, s.63 audit, s.263 returns, s.392 to s.399 deduction, s.404 to s.408 advance tax, s.536 savings)
• Finance Act, 2026 (No. 4 of 2026) — Gazette of India Extraordinary, 30 March 2026 (s.2(1) and s.3(1) charging sections, s.5 and s.66 return due dates, s.96 substituting s.427 and s.428)
• Income-tax Rules, 2026 — G.S.R. 198(E) dated 20 March 2026 (Rule 215 certificates, Rule 218 deposit, Rule 219 quarterly statements)
• Income Tax Department, e-filing portal — Income Tax Returns
• Income Tax Department, e-filing portal — Income Tax Forms (tax audit report forms and due dates)
• Income Tax Department, e-filing portal — TDS Compliance
• Income Tax Department, e-filing portal — Tax Payments (advance tax and deposit timelines)
• Income Tax Department, e-filing portal — ITR-V and the 30-day e-verification timeline
• TRACES (CPC-TDS, Income Tax Department) — The A-Z of TDS brochure (quarterly statement and certificate dates)