If you are ready to file your Income Tax Return (ITR), you may file the return of income in the existing income tax India e-filing site till May 31, 2021. After that, from June 1, you have to wait for the launch of the new e-filing site – incometaxindia.gov.in – which is scheduled on June 6, 2021.

“Proposed new income tax site will have the capabilities to process the income tax return immediately on filing of the same, resulting in immediate processing of income tax refunds to the taxpayers. In addition to that, it has several taxpayer friendly features including tax tutorials, Live Chat options, single web page for all taxpayers related services, payment of taxes through Credit cards, UPI, etc,” says CA Geetanshu Bhalla, Director at The Virtual Compliance.

What was the need of a new site?

“Last year our Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the creation of a tax friendly environment. The agenda of such an announcement includes granting of income tax refunds to the taxpayers on a real time basis, reducing the tax compliance cost and providing expert guidance to the taxpayers by the department itself. The design of the current website does not allow to incorporate such features. Thus, a new site is proposed by the Income Tax Department,” says Bhalla.

Pointing out that a new website would create confusion, CA Karan Batra, Founder and CEO of CharteredClub.com, however, says “There is no point having so many separate websites. The current e-filing site – incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in – and the proposed site – incometaxindia.gov.in – should ideally be merged and the interface should be made more user friendly.”

What will be the advantages of a new site over the current one?

“Allowing the payment of income tax via, credit card, UPI, etc, processing of income tax return on real time basis, Single web page for all taxpayers’ related issues, online and offline return preparation software at free of cost are few of the relief provided to the taxpayers by way of proposed new site,” says Bhalla.