No more tense meets with taxman

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday launched the national e-assessment which is expected to usher in faceless assessment of tax cases and shut out interaction of taxpayers with officials and usher in transparency.
In the first phase, the Income Tax department has selected 58,322 cases for scrutiny under the e-Assessment scheme 2019 and e-notices have been served before September 30, for the cases of assessment year 2018-19.

In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced launching of the scheme in 2019 that would provide e-assessment of income-tax in electronic mode, in a phased manner, with no human interface.

Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said with the launch of National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC), the tax department will usher in a paradigm shift in its working by introducing faceless e-assessment to impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process. He said that with NeAC, there would be no physical interface between the tax payers and the tax officers.

The taxpayers have been advised to check their registered e-filing accounts/ email ids and have been requested to furnish reply within 15 days. The department hopes that with the ease of compliance for taxpayers, the cases would be disposed off expeditiously, a statement from the finance ministry said.

This new initiative of faceless assessment is expected to increase ease of compliance for taxpayers as the cost and anxiety of taxpayers are likely to be greatly reduced.

No human interface with the department would be a game changer and transparency and efficiency would lead to reduced litigation.

The statement said functional specialisation would lead to certainty in tax matters which would lead to increased ease of doing business. Adoption of risk based and focussed approach in team based assessment is expected to standardise procedures by eliminating human interface.

The grievances of over pitched assessment by the taxpayers is likely to be greatly reduced and better assessment of income is expected to lead to greater revenue mobilization, thus greater resources for undertaking welfare work for people of India. It is also likely to lead to quicker disposal of cases, the department said.