With a fine for delayed filing kicking in, income tax returns filed at the expiry of the 31 August deadline have gone up by over 70% this year to 5.42 crore from a year ago. Last year, 3.17 crore returns were filed before deadline, said a tax department official who spoke on condition of anonymity. On 31 August itself, 34,95,093 returns were filed when the deadline expired. The improvement in compliance is on account of gentle and sustained persuasion of potential taxpayers, said the official. “We have been urging people through text messages and emails to file their tax returns on time. Now both return filing as well as tax payment are easy. Taxpayers also get refunds as early as 15 days after return filing,” said the official.