New revenue tax e-filing portal: FM flags ‘concerns’, Infosys to resolve key points in every week

In two separate conferences with Infosys on Tuesday, Finance Ministry officers mentioned the glitches affecting the newly launched revenue tax portal. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman “expressed her deep concern on the various problems being faced by the stakeholders in the new portal which was expected to provide a seamless experience to taxpayers”, a Finance Ministry assertion stated.
The first assembly was attended by Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj, CBDT Chairman Jagannath Mohapatra and different senior officers, whereby the Finance Minister exhorted Infosys to work on the tax portal to make it “more humane and user-friendly”. This was adopted by one other detailed assembly between senior officers of the Department of Revenue and the Infosys group, protecting technical points within the new portal.

“The FM asked Infosys to address all issues without further loss of time, improve their services, and redress grievances on priority as it was impacting taxpayers adversely,” the assertion stated. During the assembly, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh, COO Pravin Rao, and different firm officers took word of the problems. Infosys knowledgeable that it has been working to repair the technical points. It stated at the least 5 problems with e-proceedings, Form 15CA/15CB, TDS statements, DSC, viewing of previous ITRs are anticipated to be resolved in a few week, the assertion stated.

Within 4 hours of its launch on June 7, the brand new revenue tax e-filing portal began growing glitches — starting from primary login points, incapability to generate OTP for Aadhaar validation, password technology glitches, failure to hyperlink outdated information for previous returns, and issues in submitting returns — following which the Finance Ministry known as for a gathering with the undertaking’s vendor, Infosys, to deal with stakeholder considerations and recommend remedial measures. The Ministry had obtained greater than 700 emails from stakeholders detailing over 2,000 points together with 90 distinctive points/issues within the new portal.

During the assembly, Sitharaman emphasised that enhanced taxpayer service is a vital precedence for the federal government and each effort must be made to amplify the identical. The assembly was attended by 10 tax professionals, together with representatives of ICAI and All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP).
The e-filing portal http://www.incometax.gov.in was launched on June 7, which the tax division in addition to the federal government stated was geared toward making compliance extra taxpayer-friendly. This is the portal that widespread revenue taxpayers may even use to file their annual returns for evaluation 12 months 2021-22, for revenue earned in monetary 12 months 2020-21. The final date for submitting of such returns by particular person taxpayers is September 30.

Ahead of Tuesday’s assembly with Infosys, the Finance Ministry had on June 16 invited written representations from stakeholders about glitches or points confronted on the brand new I-T e-filing portal.
The Cabinet authorised an expenditure sanction of Rs 4,241.97 crore for Integrated e-Filing & Centralized Processing Center (CPC) 2.0 Project of the Income Tax Department on January 16, 2019 from FY 2018-19 to FY 2026-27, which incorporates payout to Infosys. The letter of award of contract was issued to Infosys on January 23, 2019, to design, develop, implement, function and preserve CPC. Infosys was awarded the contract in 2019 to develop a brand new revenue tax submitting system that would scale back processing time for returns from 63 days to sooner or later, and expedite refunds.