The e-filing system of income tax has come to the rescue of lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of tax assesses who had filed their returns electronically this year and they will escape penalty even if their acknowledgment is dated a day later.

According to the tax department, the servers of the tax department worked overnight thereby changing the date and hence generated receipt for the next day as tax payers rushed in on the last day creating a huge traffic.

The government, in a recent circular said all income tax returns for 2008-09 which were scheduled to be filed electronically on September 30 but acknowledged for October 1 will be treated as having been filed within due date and will attract no penalty.

"On September 30 about 2.5 lakh (250,000) electronic returns were filed of which more than a lakh (100,000) tax payers would have been acknowledged as having filed their returns a day late on October 1, which attracts penalty," a senior IT department official said.

"This happened due to a lot of congestion and voluminous traffic as a lot of tax payers file their returns on the last day. Considering this all such tax payers would not be penalised," the official added.

The phenomenon of carry forward of business losses and unabsorbed depreciation will be allowed for all such persons. The rebate benefits under sections 80 I-A and 80 I-B of the Income Tax Act will also be granted, the official said.

"Any tax dues and penal interests would not be imposed as the tax payers did file their returns on the due date but the huge inflow of traffic hit the servers," the official said.

On December 22, the Central Board of Direct Taxes in a statement said, "Any return of income for the assessment year 2008-09 filed electronically on September 30, 2008, in respect of which the electronic acknowledgment bears the date stamp of October 1, shall be treated as having been filed within the due date September 30.

"No penal action will be taken for failure to file the return by the due date in these cases," the statement said.

"Tax payers, in order to avoid the last minute rush should avoid waiting till the last date thereby helping themselves and the department," the official added.