Pilots would be conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai for non-corporate cases; e-hearing would be held in 100 cases.
Scared of facing income tax officer? In a major initiative to address tax harassment, the authorities plan to do paperless income tax assessment over emails.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has rolled out a pilot project whereby e-hearing would be conducted in 100 cases.
“This would eliminate the necessity of visiting the income-tax offices by the taxpayers, particularly in smaller cases involving limited issues and where taxpayer is able to provide details required by the assessing officer without necessi tating his physical presence,“ the apex direct taxes body said in a directive to field officers.
Pilots would be conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai for non-corporate cases.
The NDA government has promised a `fair, predictable and stable' tax regime in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself, in an interaction with the CBDT chief and revenue secretary some time back, had emphasised the need to improve the department's interface with taxpayers, according to a government official privy to the deliberations.
He had suggested cutting down on physical interface of taxpayers with tax authorities as that itself is sometimes seen as harassment and switch over to e-hearing scenario. Tax experts welcomed the CBDT initiative.
“This is an encouraging and progressive step in line with the government's resolve to bring in transparency and to bridge the expectation gap between the taxpayers and the tax authorities,“ said Vikas Vasal, partner at KPMG in India. “A lot of time, cost and effort can be saved with the use of technology ,“ he said.
Vasal said that besides being an environment friendly measure, electronic assessments will help achieve consistency in tax positions and speedy dispute resolu tion. Tax authorities have overtime gained an image that they harass and terrorise taxpayers and the board has undertaken a number of efforts to shed that tag.It has already asked tax officials not to give multiple appointments to taxpayers for any interaction as also to avoid roving enquiry in case of a scrutiny.
The board is taking steps to develop a dedicated standardised platform for electronic-interface with taxpayers.
Cases selected for scrutiny based on information in annual information return or mismatch in tax deducted at source would be taken up as part of this exercise.
The Economic Times, New Delhi, 21st Oct. 2015
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