Income tax return (ITR) filing: The NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be determined to take a pathbreaking initiative to make Income tax returns filling a hassle free process for taxpayers. The government in one such step may facilitate Income tax return (ITR) forms being pre-filled based on information already available with the Income-Tax department, making ITR filing easier for people, a senior official told Live Mint.

Quoting Sushil Chandra, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the report said that the authorities are working on a project that will use data available from entities that deduct tax at source (TDS), such as employers and banks, to offer pre-filled income tax returns forms to people. Chandra told this at an international tax conference organized by Confederation of Indian Industry in Delhi on Tuesday. (Pixabay)

A pre-filled income tax return form could be submitted directly or after modification, said the report, adding that the move is part of the CBDT’s efforts to be a technologically strong body with minimal human interface and lesser discretion at the level of officials. Notably, the CBDT's effort shows the intensive income tax data gathering the department does from third parties to profile assessees and reduce the risk of tax evasion. (Reuters)

Chandra also revealed that there is no discretion in selecting cases for income tax return scrutiny, while adding that the department has managed to limit cases taken up for scrutiny to less than 0.5% of all returns filed. He informed that “This year, a large number of cases were chosen for e-assessment. So far, 70,000 cases have been assessed electronically without calling the assesses to offices.” (Reuters)

This year CBDT received 6.08 crore income tax returns, which was 50% more than what was received last year by this time, Chandra reportedly said, informing that gentle persuasion by way of text messages and emails as well as penalty for filing after the August 31 deadline led to the surge in ITR filing. (Reuters)

He also added that the number of income tax returns filed by corporate entities have also gone up to 8 lakh this year, compared to seven lakh earlier. CBDT has so far collected nearly half of its full year revenue target of Rs 11.5 trillion this year, Chandra said, ading that CBDT will also within a year start giving out e-PAN within four hours. (Pixabay)

Notably, a total of 6.85 crore income tax returns were filed in 2017-18. In this fiscal, taxpayers can file their returns till March 31, 2019 with a fine of Rs 5,000 for ITR filings between August 31 and December 31. If income taxpayers failed to file their return in this period, the fine would be doubled. (Reuters)