The CBDT has issued a press release dated 27.10.2015 stating that the Income-tax Department is committed to the ‘Digital India’ initiative of the Government of India.The Finance Minister today launched an “e-Sahyog” pilot project which furthers the Department’s commitment to work in an e-environment and reduces the need for the taxpayer to physically appear before tax authorities
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Direct Taxes
PRESS RELEASE
New Delhi, 27th October, 2015
Subject: Finance Minister launches the “e-Sahyog” pilot project of the Income-tax Department.
The Income-tax Department is committed to the ‘Digital India’ initiative of the Government of India.The Finance Minister today launched an “e-Sahyog” pilot project which furthers the Department’s commitment to work in an e-environment and reduces the need for the taxpayer to physically appear before tax authorities.
The “e-Sahyog” project launched on a pilot basis, is aimed at reducing compliance cost, especially for small taxpayers. The objective of “e-Sahyog” is to provide an online mechanism to resolve mismatches in Income-tax returns to taxpayers whose returns have not been selected for scrutiny, without visiting the Income Tax Office. Under this initiative the Department will provide an end to end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the taxpayers of the mismatch. The taxpayer will simply need to visit the e-filing portal and log in with their user-ID and password to view mismatch related information and submit online response on the issue. The responses submitted online by the taxpayers will be processed and if the response and other information are found satisfactory as per automated closure rules, the issue will be closed. The taxpayer can check the updated status by logging in to the e-filing portal.
The Finance Minister also inaugurated a drive to provide public service byholding “special PAN camps in remote areas”. Under this drive, special PAN camps are being held over two days at forty- three remote semi urban and rural locations across India in the first instance to facilitate obtaining of PAN by persons residing in such areas. The Finance Minister interacted with applicants and officials at seven of these camps through a video conference. More such camps will be held through the year. The camps will ease the burden of compliance for persons residing in remote semi urban and rural areas who wish to enter into transactions of purchase or sale above rupees one lakhand will be required to quote PAN as announced in the Budget speech of 2015-16.
On this occasion, the Finance Minister stated that the objective of the Income Tax Department is to make life as easy as possible for the assessees and difficult only for those who consciously evade taxes. These digital initiatives will help in creating a positive environment.
These initiatives of the Department are expected to significantly reduce the burden of compliance on taxpayers and enhance the taxpayer satisfaction.
(Shefali Shah)
The system should be towards indigenous model of the HINDU ECONOMY
D S JETHI adv
Good initiative, but,………….
Another feather in the CBDT’s cap.
Yes the CBDT at last had come with an useful and meaningful action oriented project. I wish the CBDT and FM should continue such meaningful actions and projects in future.
Sir, e-SAHYOG seems to be a very good initiative of CBDT . But it is not clear why it is on ” pilot” basis since the problem of mismatch is widespread. Involving the taxpayer online to sort out the mismatch problem is an admirable step as only the taxpayer knows how difficult it is to get a rectification made in case of mismatches. Similar involvement of taxpayer online in rectification of mistakes apparent from record and issue of refunds will also go a long way to bring cheer to the hapless taxpayer. Such tax payer friendly measures may also encourage tax payers to declare higher income and pay higher taxes.