Tired of following up your complaint with the income tax department! Here is some good news.

To bring in more transparency with effective and timely redressal of tax payers’ grievances, the income tax department has set strict deadlines for its officers to dispose complaints, which is 15-60 days.

In a directive issued by the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) chairman Atulesh Jindal on June 22, he has asked his officers to strictly adhere to the deadline to solve tax payers’ complaints within 60 days, sources said.

The deadlines are now part of the tax department’s annual action plan which was released after the recent tax officers’ meeting at the Rajasva Gyan Sangam, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid special emphasis on taxpayer friendly services and focused on complaint resolution.

To improve its image among the taxpayers of the coountry, CBDT chairman will hold monthly review meetings to ensure timely redressal of grievances.

Also depending upon the urgency, nature of complaint and the profile of the complainant, the process of addressing the concern can be speeded up to 15 days.

Complaints received from the Prime Minister’s office, tax department, central board of direct taxes, member of Parliament’s or any other high priority case will be resolved in a maximum of 15 days from the receipt of the complaint.

Similarly, if a complaint is routed from the government’s online grievance portal - CPGRAMS or the Aaykar Seva Kendra (ASK centre), then the disposal will have to be in a maximum of 60 days.
The directive to tax officers is that requests for tax adjustments with outstanding refunds should be processed within 30 days.

The CBDT had earlier during the tax administrators conference announced the first ever and unique ‘e-nivaran’ module which aims to fast track taxpayers grievance redressal, ensure early resolution by integrating all the online and physical grievances received by the department and keeping track of it until it reaches its logical conclusion.

The department is now considering to launch an ‘e-nivaran’ form, on the lines of the ITR form to take care of issues related to refunds and others by sending acknowledgements through SMSes and emails.

The tax department is among the top five central government’s office in terms of receiving complaints from the people directly through various platforms, both online as well in terms of physical paper complaints.