A look at five important steps introduced this year by the I-T dept to make the life of the taxpayer easier.

Over the past few years, the government has taken various steps to improve the taxpayers' experience by reducing physical interaction of the tax officers and taxpayers and by making available various functionalities online. Some of these initiatives include, the facility to e-file income tax return (ITR), e-payment of taxes, ECS facility to deposit tax refunds directly in taxpayers' bank accounts, and e-filing of TDS returns.

These measures are now bearing fruit for the government. The Economic Survey of 2018-19 highlighted that with the revenue department using the latest technology and reducing manual intervention (to improve the taxpayers' experience) has helped the government improve tax collections.

The year 2019, too, saw the government introducing various taxpayer friendly measures. Here is a look at some of the important steps introduced this year by the income tax department to make the life of the average taxpayer easier while interacting with the department.

Launch of e-Assessment Scheme

The department has rolled out faceless e-assessment scheme with the intention to eliminate personal interaction between a taxpayer and tax officers. This scheme is a 'paradigm shift' in the assessment procedure which completely eliminates human interaction during tax assessment. The replies to the tax notices can be prepared and submitted online without visiting the tax office. This step definitely improves taxpayer's ease and convenience.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has made it mandatory for tax officers to take recourse of e-communications for all limited and complete scrutiny cases. Earlier, the e-assessment was carried by the Assessing Officer but now the role of Assessing Officer shall be limited to only imposition of penalty, collection and recovery of demand, rectification of mistake, etc., and e-assessment shall be purely carried out by the 'National e-Assessment Centres (NeAC)'.

Facility to verify authenticity of tax notices

To safeguard taxpayers from phishing emails and fake tax notices, the CBDT has made it mandatory for the tax authorities to quote Document Identification Number (DIN) in all the correspondence issued by them. Tax officers have been instructed that no communication would be issued manually without DIN except only if it is in specified exceptional circumstances. Any communication issued manually under exceptional circumstances would have to be uploaded and regularised on the system's portal within 15 days of its issuance.

Taxpayers can verify the authenticity of all such communications and notices from the e-filing portal by just entering the DIN. Any communication from the income tax department without a computer generated DIN will be treated as invalid and shall be non-est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued.

Allotment of e-PAN using Aadhaar card

The income tax department launched a pilot project to provide an 'instant' Aadhaar-based PAN allotment service for individuals seeking to obtain a unique identity for the first time. However, only a Beta version of this facility was launched for a limited period. The taxpayers were issued PAN immediately and free-of-cost using this facility.

This facility was provided only to the applicants holding a valid Aadhaar number. During the pilot version of this facility, the department issued more than 62,000 ePANs over a span of eight days. The department is now planning to launch a full-scale production version of this facility.

PAN-Aadhaar interchangeability

With effect from 1 September, 2019, the Aadhaar number can be used interchangeably in place of PAN. Taxpayers can now quote Aadhaar number in lieu of PAN in more than 100 forms. This option will benefit small taxpayers and senior citizens who do not have PAN but their income comes within the ambit of TDS. They can now file Form 15G/15H using their Aadhaar number.

Robust e-filing platform

The income tax department witnessed a substantial jump in the e-filing of ITRs with a record breaking filing of almost 5 million returns in a single day on 31 August, 2019. Peak filing rate per second was at 196 ITRs and peak filing rate per minute was at 7,447 ITRs while peak filing rate per hour was at 387,571 ITRs.

The e-filing website was working smoothly during the entire tax filing season in the year 2019. This tax filing season, the tax department has also launched a lighter version of the e-filing portal, called 'e-Filing Lite'. The purpose of this portal was to reduce traffic on the main portal to make tax filing process smooth for taxpayers.