| In a bid to reduce harassment of tax payers, the income-tax department is mulling setting up five centralised return processing centres in different parts of the country. |
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| The concept is to provide one-stop service to a tax payer at one centralised place from filing returns to tax refunds and tax certificates. |
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| The income-tax department is also in the process of hiring 7,500 additional staff. Some will be recruited directly while others will be hired on a temporary basis or outsourced in the case of non-core activities like data entry. |
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| Acting on a committee recommendation, the department was setting up the return mass processing centres in New Delhi, Bhubaneswar and three other cities for salaried as well as non-salaried class of assessees, official sources said. |
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| Once the returns are filed, the documents will go to the central processing centre of that region and will be kept there after being processed. |
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| At the moment, tax returns remain with the assessing officer. This makes tax payers vulnerable to the officers misbehaviour. |
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| The move will be good for tax payers as well as the I-T department. It will help in systematic control and storage of records, the source said. However, assessing officers will be allowed to access the file of the assessee whenever required. |
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| With tax compliance improving and income-tax rates getting stable, the focus of the I-T department on reducing discretionary powers of assessing officers. |
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| At the moment, there is a mass return processing centre for salaried tax payers in Mumbai, which is likely to be extended to non-salaried class this year. |
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| The move would guard tax payers against problems such as delay by assessing officers in giving a refund, double tax payment, time lag in getting a tax clearance certificate and uncivilised behaviour of assessing officers. |
