An initiative by the Income-tax Department to provide taxpayers ease of compliance and seamless experience, the new Income Tax portal was launched on 7th June 2021. The new portal has been designed in a modern manner to provide a more user-friendly and simplified interface to the general public. The portal can be accessed at www.incometax.gov.in.
Current Public Opinion
The new income tax portal comes with its own set of benefits and additional options which can be used by the taxpayers in the long run. But as it is said that not every change is progress. The taxpayers, even the Chartered Accountants have shown deep disappointment since the launch of the new portal. The new portal is filled with several technical glitches and issues leading to greater inconvenience. More than 700 emails detailing over 2000 issues were recorded relating to the difficulties, errors, glitches, and technical issues faced by the taxpayers.
The launch of the portal was made during the second half of the financial year when the due dates are also approaching; such an untested platform has created havoc amongst the general public.
Practical issues faced by taxpayers
It’s been a number of days now, since the launch of the new portal and still, a lot of functionalities of the portal are not working. Some of the unique problems faced are:
There is still unavailability of three ITRs, i.e., ITR-05, ITR-06, ITR-07 on the portal out of 7 ITRs in total.
The absence of Form-3CD on the portal making it difficult to file a Tax Audit Report.
The constant delay has been faced for getting a Bank Validation.
The calculation and comparison of tax cannot be done in accordance with other schemes than the selected one.
Answering multiple questions at the each steps while deducting or exempting arise constant irritation.
Internet connectivity is a must even if the data is required to be filled in online utility.
Despite filling the return through new portal is time consuming, the duration of filling the data is restricted to 40 minutes in the online mode.
Amongst the other technical glitches and issues, there are also errors in interest calculation, incorrect capturing of details, inability to verify. These are only a few problems out of the several more identified.
Benefits of the new portal
Later or sooner, things will be fixed, as many interactive meetings have been held to discuss the problems faced by the taxpayers, and even a deadline has been fixed to get the bugs repaired, the future benefits that the new portal will yield cannot be ignored.
Some of the benefits of the New Income Tax portal are:
Single Dashboard: The new portal has been designed to show all uploads, pending actions, and interactions on a single dashboard. As, per the government, this will make the follow-up process for the taxpayers effortless. The easy interface also saves unnecessary screen movements.
User-Friendly Portal: Along with the change in interface, the government has also tried to cater to the needs of Taxpayers, while designing the Income Tax Portal 2.0. The portal will permit immediate processing of Income Tax returns. Hence it is expected that the taxpayers will now be able to file a number of returns in less time. The new portal will provide free-of-cost ITR preparation software both in online and offline modes. This software is embedded with interactive questions, and according to the government any person reading those FAQs even without tax knowledge will be able to file their return successfully.
Quick Refunds: Normally using the old Income tax portal, it would take around 30-35 days for the refund to be issued, thereby blocking the money. With the new portal, quick refunds are expected to be issued. With this, the department anticipates preventing further delay in the subsequent procedures.
All New Mobile App: The government has also adopted the modern way of working anywhere using pocket-sized devices, mobile phones. All the key portal functions on the desktop will be made available on the mobile app for full-time access. The app will be supporting which all operating system has not been declared as of now. There will be no need of carrying laptops or documents files everywhere, the government foresees this application as a means to reduce the number of problems of the taxpayers.
Call Center Facility: New call centers will be established to assist the taxpayer via resolving their queries, FAQs, providing them with tutorials, videos, and chatbot/live agents. Many times, taxpayers are stuck while performing the compliance procedures and without any clarity, they tend to commit mistakes. With the introduction of call centers, the government and department think that such problems will be reduced to a greater extent and thereby saving the time of both taxpayers and the authority.
New Payment Options: With the emerging digital payments, especially after demonetization use of credit and debit cards is decreasing day by day. People want to make payments just with a click. The government has hence decided to introduce in later stages, a greater number of payment options including net banking, UPI, for ease of payment of taxes.
More features will be better understood, once all the glitches are removed from the platform. The department has also requested the patience of all the stakeholders for an initial period after the launch of the new portal.
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