Technical difficulties continue to plague the new income tax portal a month after its debut and two weeks after the finance minister evaluated its operation, according to chartered accountants, since several essential utilities like e-proceedings and digital signature certificates are still unavailable. They also stated that several foreign companies have had difficulty logging onto the platform.
The much-touted new income tax portal, www.incometax.gov.in, has had a rocky start since its debut on June 7 due to technical issues, prompting Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to schedule a meeting with officials from Infosys, the company that created the new website, on June 22.
Users are reporting non-availability of Income Tax Returns 3, 5, 6, and 7 and rectification functionality, difficulties in ITR filing, e-verification or access to the site in some circumstances, and technical challenges in the filing of some statutory documents, according to the I-T department.
Meetings and feedback sessions with team members from Infosys and other stakeholders such as the ICAI are held every month by senior officials in the Finance Ministry.
In 2019, Infosys won a contract to create the next-generation income tax filing system, which will cut return processing time from 63 days to one day and speed up refunds.
While the site’s functionality has improved since then, it appears that the technology-related issues have persisted, and it may take some more time to make the site fully operational.
There is no opportunity to request getting intimation u/s 143 in situations where tax demands have been issued (1). Due to the lack of a tab, the taxpayer is unable to file applications under section 154 for the correction of errors.
Certain capabilities, such as reviewing the status of e-proceedings and submitting grievance petitions, were not initially available but are now, according to Deloitte India Partner Saraswathi Kasturirangan, showing that the portal’s value is being increased.
Currently, around 8-10 lakh individuals are entering the new portal, with 40,000 ITRs being filed daily, it stated.
More than 62 lakh Aadhaar-PAN linkage requests were received, 4.87 lakh e-PANs were granted, and 1.32 lakh DSC registrations were completed using the platform. Taxpayers have started using the e-proceeding capability for anonymous assessments, and 24,781 replies with 1.42 lakh attachments have been received as of July 10, 2021.
On June 22, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh and COO Pravin Rao, along with other corporate officials, met with Sitharaman and senior finance ministry officials to discuss the problems raised by stakeholders. They also recognized technical difficulties with the portal and provided an update on the status of solutions for the concerns raised by stakeholders. During the discussion, Sitharaman emphasized her serious worry about the many issues that stakeholders are encountering with the new portal, which was supposed to offer taxpayers a smooth experience.
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