Tag: Income Tax Portal

‘itat e-dwar’, an e-filing portal of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal launched today

Posted on by Business So Simple in Income Tax, International Taxation

Law Minister Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad launches ‘itat e-dwar’, an e-filing portal of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal


Portal will enable online filing of Appeals, Applications, documents etc. by various parties

Cases of  Income Tax Appellate Tribunal should be integrated in National Judicial Data Grid: Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad

Posted Date:- Jun 25, 2021

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law & Justice, Communications and Electronics & IT, formally launched the e-filing portal of Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), ‘itat e-dwar’, at 04.00 pm today, the 25 June 2021 in New Delhi. 

Launching the Portal, the Minister explained the power of Digital India.  He said Digital India means empowering an ordinary Indian with the power of technology – To bridge the digital divide between the digital haves and the digital have nots leading to digital inclusion achieved by technology, which is low cost, home grown and developmental.  Digital India means a framework for transforming India with the power of technology. He highlighted that nearly 129 crore of the Indian population are enrolled for Aadhar which is the digital identity to supplement one’s physical identity.  Nearly 40 crore bank accounts have been opened for the poor and linked to Aadhar.  Using the power of Digital India about Rs.16.7 lakh crore has been transferred to the account of the poor as Direct Benefit Transfer, saving Rs.1.78 lakh crores which was, otherwise, being siphoned off by middlemen.  Digital India has positioned our country as a world leader in digital payments.  It needs to be highlighted that Aadhar, DBT, UPI and the health scheme, Ayushman Bharat, all are ‘made in India’. Another milestone achievement of Digital India is the establishment of Common Service Centres, which were only 75,000 in number in 2014, now stand at 4lakh.  CSCs provide several services that are citizen centric and the Minister suggested that the lawyers must associate themselves in tendering legal advice to the needy through Tele Law programme, through the CSCs.  Nearly 9 lakh advices were given during the last 4 years though Tele Law. 

The Minister detailed how during the pandemic and the lockdown that ensued the Judiciary functioned through digital means and heard more than one crore cases.  He stated that data about more than 18 crore cases are available in the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) and he suggested that cases of ITAT should also be integrated in the NJDG. He pointed out that VC facility has been provided in more than 800 jails so that the undertrials are able to appear before the Courts without the police having to bring them physically to the courts.

He further cautioned that this initiative of ITAT must not be seen as a solitary step.  Instead, it should be seen as a larger narrative of transformation that the country is undergoing through digital medium.  It enables innovation and empowerment and opens new avenues for growth.  He expressed hope that ‘itat e-dwar’ will be widely accepted by the lawyers and tax litigants alike.

On this occasion, a virtual function was organized at the national level which was attended by the functionaries of ITAT from all the 28 stations.  The members of various Bar Associations also joined the virtual function.  It was also attended by the Officers of the Income Tax Department, Chartered Accountants, Taxpayers and other legal luminaries in the field of tax, from across the country.

Justice P.P. Bhatt, President of ITAT, on this occasion, informed the gathering that the launch of e-Filing Portal ‘itat e-dwar’ will enhance the accessibility, accountability and transparency in the day to day working of the ITAT.  It would not only result in economization of the use of paper, savings in costs but also rationalization of the fixation of cases leading to quicker disposal of cases.  On this occasion, Justice Bhatt also announced a plan to set up paperless courts in the ITAT with a pilot project being undertaken at Delhi Benches of ITAT.  It was also informed that even during the period of Pandemic, by using the tools of information and communication technology, various benches of ITAT have functioned and kept up its activity of judicial dispensation.  It was revealed that inspite of the restricted functioning of Benches, the adoption of Video Conferencing has brought down the pendency of cases to about 64,500 as against 88,000 on 1st April, 2020.

The newly developed e-Filing Portal would enable the parties to file their Appeals, Miscellaneous Applications, documents, paper books, etc., electronically. 

On this occasion, Shri Anoop Kumar Mendiratta, Union Law Secretary also addressed and congratulated the ITAT for the initiative taken by it developing the new e-Filing Portal.  Shri G.S. Pannu, Vice President (Delhi Zone) and Chairman, Computerization Committee, ITAT explained that with the combination of digital court room, virtual hearings and Mobile Application providing Judicial Information, paperless courts will soon be a reality in ITAT.

Ministry of Law & Justice Press release 25 June 2021

Clarification for use of functionality under section 206AB and 206CCA of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (Press release dated 22 June 2021)

Posted on by Business So Simple in Income Tax

Finance Act, 2021 inserted two new sections 206AB and 206CCA in the Income-tax Act 1961 which takes effect from 1st day of July, 2021. These sections mandate tax deduction or tax collection at higher rate in case of certain non-filers (specified persons). Higher rate is twice the prescribed rate or 5%, whichever is higher.

To implement these two provisions, tax deductor/collector was required to do a due diligence of satisfying himself if the deductee/collectee is a specified person. This would have resulted in extra compliance burden on such tax deductor/collector. To ease this compliance burden the Central Board of Direct Taxes has issued a new functionality “Compliance Check for Sections 206AB & 206CCA”. This functionality is already functioning through reporting portal of the Income-tax Department (https://report.insight.gov.in).

The tax deductor/collector can feed the single PAN (PAN search) or multiple PANs (bulk search) of the deductee/ coIIectee and can get a response from the functionality if such deductee/collectee is a specified person. For PAN Search, response will be visible on the screen which can be downloaded in the PDF format. For Bulk Search, response would be in the form of downloadable file which can be kept for record.

The logic of the functionality has been explained through CBDT Circular No. 11 of 2021 dated 21st June, 2021 available at (https://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/communications/circular/circular_11_2021.pdf). The Circular has further eased the burden of the tax deductors/collectors by ensuring that the deductors/collectors need to check the PAN in the functionality at the beginning of the financial year without there being any need to check the PAN of the non-specified person again during that financial year.

With this new functionality, the Government has reiterated its commitment to ease the compliance burden of taxpayers.

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RM/MV/KMN

Finance Ministry interact today (22 June 2021) with tax professionals, other stakeholders and Infosys on issues in new Income Tax Portal

Posted on by Business So Simple in Income Tax

MOF issued Press release today (22 June 2021) interacting with tax professionals, other stakeholders and Infosys on issues in new Income Tax Portal.

A meeting was held between senior officials of the Finance Ministry and Infosys on 22.06.2021 on issues in the new Income Tax Portal. The meeting was presided over by Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, also participated in the meeting. The interaction was attended by Shri Tarun Bajaj, Secretary Revenue; Shri J. B. Mohapatra, Chairman, CBDT; Smt. Anu J. Singh, Member (L & Systems), CBDT, and other senior officers of CBDT. Infosys was represented by its MD & CEO, Shri Salil Parekh and COO, Shri Praveen Rao and other members of their team. The meeting was also attended by 10 tax professionals from across the country, including representatives of ICAI and All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP).

The new e-filing portal 2.0 of Income Tax Department (incometax.gov.in) went live on 07.06.2021. Since its launch, there were numerous glitches in the functioning of the new portal. Taking note of the grievances voiced on social media by taxpayers, tax professionals and other stakeholders, the Finance Minister had also flagged the issues to the vendor M/s Infosys, calling upon them to address these concerns. However, since the portal continued to be plagued by technical glitches causing inconvenience to taxpayers, it was decided to hold a meeting between Finance Ministry and Infosys as also other stakeholders here today. Suggestions in respect of the glitches on the portal were invited online by 18.06.2021. More than 700 emails detailing over 2,000 issues including 90 unique issues/problems in the portal were received in response to the same.

During the meeting, Smt. Sitharaman emphasised that enhanced taxpayer service is an important priority for the present Government and every effort should be made to amplify the same. While appreciating the role of ICAI and its president Shri Jambusaria and the ICAI’s positive contribution in giving shape to today’s meeting, the Finance Minister complimented them for providing specific nuanced inputs lying between the intersection of technology and taxation. Smt. Sitharaman also expressed her gratitude to the people who sent inputs through email and assured them that their suggestions would be taken up in all earnestness and would be addressed on priority.

The Finance Minister exhorted Infosys (service provider) to work on the tax portal to make it more humane and user-friendly and expressed her deep concern on the various problems being faced by the stakeholders in the new portal which was expected to provide a seamless experience to taxpayers.

Smt. Sitharaman asked Infosys to address all issues without further loss of time, improve their services, redress grievances on priority as it was impacting taxpayers adversely. The Finance Minister concluded her remarks by appreciating the taxpayers who have kept up with the timelines of compliances despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Smt. Sitharaman also hoped that the positive engagement between taxpayers, tax professionals and the Government would continue in future. The Finance Minister assured them that the Government is responsive to their problems and is proactively committed to enhance taxpayer service and experience.

The team from Infosys, which was led by the CEO and COO of Infosys, took note of the issues highlighted by the stakeholders. They also noted the observations and suggestions received from various users and stakeholders through email. The Infosys team acknowledged the technical issues in the functioning of the portal and shared the status of the resolution w.r.t the issues highlighted by the stakeholders. They informed that Infosys has been working to fix the technical issues noticed in the functioning of the portal and that they have augmented the resources for execution of the project on the hardware as well as the application side and that some of the issues have already been identified and fixed. For the other remaining technical issues, they assured that their teams were working on these issues and gave the expected timelines within which the issues such as e-proceedings, Form 15CA/15CB, TDS statements, DSC, viewing of past ITRs etc. are expected to be resolved in about a week. It was also decided that the timelines mentioned by Infosys to redress the issues would also be placed in public domain in due course.

This interaction was followed by another detailed meeting between senior officers of the Department of Revenue and the Infosys team, covering technical issues in the new portal.

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RM/MV/KMN

New functionality issued for compliance checks for sec 206AB & 206CCA to ease compliance burden of tax deductors/collectors vide CBDT Circular No. 11/2021

Posted on by Business So Simple in Income Tax

CBDT issued Circular No. 11 of 2021 dated 21.06.2021 on implementation of section 206AB & 206CCA with respect to higher tax deduction/collection for certain non-filers. New functionality issued for compliance checks for sec 206AB & 206CCA to ease compliance burden of tax deductors/collectors.

Refer copy of Circular:

Finance Ministry to hold meeting on 22nd June, 2021 with Infosys on issues in new Income Tax Portal

Posted on by Business So Simple in Income Tax

Ministry of Finance issued Press release on 15th June says that Finance Ministry to hold meeting on 22nd June, 2021 with Infosys on issues in new Income Tax Portal

Senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, will hold an interactive meeting on the 22nd of June, 2021, between 11:00 AM to 01:00 PM with Infosys (the vendor and its team) on issues/glitches in the recently launched e-filing portal of the Income Tax Department. Other stakeholders including members from ICAI, auditors, consultants and taxpayers will also be a part of the interaction. The new portal has been fraught with several technical glitches/issues leading to taxpayer inconvenience. Written representations on the problems/difficulties faced in the portal have also been invited from the stakeholders. Representatives from Infosys team will be present to answer queries, clarify issues and receive inputs on the working of the portal, to remove glitches and sort out issues faced by the taxpayers.