The CBDT had to again face the embarrassment of having to extend the due date for filing returns of income because its website crashed. The question is that if this is the sorry state of affairs with regard to an important statutory requirement, what can one expect from so-called Digital India?
Facebook sparkles despite 1.28 billion people logging in daily …
The website statistics of Facebook are simply mind-boggling.
1.28 billion people across the Globe log in daily to upload photos, chat with friends and indulge in other frivolous activities.
Five new profiles are created every second. Photo uploads total 300 million per day. Every 60 seconds 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. 4.75 billion pieces of content is shared daily.
However, despite all the colossal traffic, Facebook works flawlessly. The pages open in a split second, wherever in the World one may be.
The examples can be multiplied ad nauseam. Amazon.in, Flipkart.com and other websites also sparkle when the traffic surges due to ‘Billion day sale’, ‘Independence Day sale’ and what not.
… However, Income-tax website crumples with slight increase in traffic
In contrast, the income-tax department, which boasts of a taxpayer base not exceeding four or five crore individuals, is notorious for its non-performance, especially on the due date for filing returns.
Insult to injury
However, the chaps managing the income-tax department stayed blissfully unaware of the hardships being faced by the taxpayers.
Instead, they mechanically and mindlessly sent out tweets reminding people that today is the “last day” for filing the return. Even the difference between “last day” and “due day” was lost sight of.
Attention Taxpayers!
Last day today!
Don't forget to file your Income Tax Return by 31st July,2017 for F.Y.2016-17.— Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) July 31, 2017
Naturally, this infuriated taxpayers:
Foolishness
Your website is down . Why r u indulging in these type of Inefficiency?
Even Microsoft is confirming the issue pic.twitter.com/OPpjpWDgSQ— Atul Modani (@atulmodani) July 31, 2017
Where to file? Any new site? Old one can't be found even by Google https://t.co/VpXMeckiAZ
— Gautam RM Sabharwal (@CASabharwal) July 31, 2017
CAs despair at sorry state of affairs
“Its not about rhetoric of due date that gets repeated year after year on extension of due date but isnt this a sadist approach that the portal is down since days and the department is absolutely indifferent towards tax filers?” CA Deepak Bubna lamented at the Brainstormers CA portal.
His sentiments were echoed by other taxpayers and professionals.
“Absolutely right. Think of the massive waste of time – manhours of professionals and assistants being wasted just staring at the screen waiting for the site to open up. Not counting the electricity, wear and tear, frustration and mental torture. And finally we have to helplessly face the clients,” CA Neil Braganca replied.
“The Site is not working please do something. Unable to understand the stand for not extending date,” CA Ritesh Srivastava added in a desperate tone.
“We clamour for extension we why not shout to upgrade the technology so that this not faced year after year. We only beg for extension of date. WE HAVE TO SHOUT,” CA Ashok Seth fumed.
N Braganca was also very upset:
“Last night it said it was shut for maintenance and was to open again at 3.00 am. Even after 3 am it as not working. I wonder what brainy guys try to interfere with software on the penultimate day of return filing deadline. I did manage to upload few returns last night before maintenance shut down but was totally unsuccessful today.”
“Are we not in a poor country which is unable to maintain a decent server for a site that earns their scam moneys” CA A. Joseph Arputharaj asked.
Wasted 2 hrs trying 2 download form 26AS. How r ppl expected 2 file ITR when the site doesn't function? @IncomeTaxIndia #DigitalIndia
— Surabhi (@informednetizen) July 31, 2017
It's not only for today , website is behaving erratic since Saturday
— Jai Shah (@shah_jai) July 31, 2017
Pretty sure last date of IT returns will get extended again this year because government can't run a website. Digital India pic.twitter.com/L3niZmxON6
— Gappistan Radio (@GappistanRadio) July 31, 2017
Tax payers in disquietude mood & Tax practitioners in trapeze act, mis-managed system of #DigitalIndia, Being PM, @narendramodi need to act.
— SATEESHKUMAR KALMEGH (@SATEESHkalmegh) July 31, 2017
@IncomeTaxIndia @adhia03 @FinMinIndia
Digitising India? A single Income Tax Website cannot run properly. Same problem for the last 3-4 yrs
— Dhruv Seth (@dhruvca) July 31, 2017
No apology, mere extension ….
In any civilized society, if a service provider is unable to render service owing to his own deficiencies, one expects him to issue a formal apology.
Here, both the Revenue Secretary and the CBDT Chairman are articulate about a number of issues. However, there is not a word of remorse for the needless harassment caused to the taxpayers and professionals.
Instead, a terse communiqué was issued extending the due date to 5th August 2017.
In view of the difficulties faced by taxpayers, date for filing of Income Tax Returns for FY 2016-17 has been extended to 5th August, 2017.
— Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) July 31, 2017
Understandably, this attitude of the department also did not go down well with the professionals.
For all the data mining talks, their server couldnt handle a overload today. They should have anticipated the traffic. 4-5 hour outage
— Hemang Shah (@hems253) July 31, 2017
An embarrassment for #DigitalIndia campaign by Govt. of India https://t.co/yf36MrQzhT
— Ankit Chaudhary (@entrepreneur987) July 31, 2017
Income Tax Returns has been extended to 5th August due to glitches on Portal so where is #digitalindia if u can't even manage a website
— Amit Kumar (@amitkumarz) July 31, 2017
…. Instead taxpayers blamed for coming on last day
The CBDT issued a press release dated 31st July 2017 in which it adopted a belligerent stand and blamed the taxpayers for coming on the due date.
“…. the main reason for failure of people to log in is because of last minute rush and panic in which those who have already logged in want to continue for the entire period for fear of losing it,” it said, implying that the taxpayers are not justified in availing of their statutory right to file the return on the due date but should have filed earlier owing to the incompetency of the department.
How will the GST website handle the colossal traffic of 300 crore invoices?
The bigger worry plaguing taxpayers and professionals is that if such is the “efficiency” of the people managing the income-tax websites, how will they manage the colossal traffic that will swamp the GST websites?
The GST related traffic will be far, far higher than that seen for income-tax.
Sir, income tax dept takes around 5 to 6 crore returns a year. GST site is expected to have 300 crore invoices a month. Hope they are ready.
— Nikhil Vadia (@NikhilVadia) July 31, 2017
CA Vellalapatti Swaminathan Iyer, Hyderabad
If you have the guts, please order linking of voter cards to Aadhaar.
There are penalties, Late Fees etc for Taxpayers for not being able to do things that they tell taxpayers to do in stipulated time irrespective of taxpayers’ problems.
There should be similar penalties on them (Government Officers etc.) for not doing things in time. They are not Answerable like taxpayers are made answerable (by making all penalties compulsory).
When Government will improve ?
Do any body remember that any Finance Minister of GOI questioned the responsible officers of this department for this annual celebration? This happened at least twice in each and every year in the past. Is any body remember that the increment / promotion has been suspended of those officers who were supposed to be responsible to provide this minimum facilities but failed miserably?
OFFHAND
To try and steer away, or let some steam off, at least for the nonce, from the ongoing- a repeat but not for the first time- long and short hot debates, but sitting on the peak of a digital explosion, better care and mind to give some thoughts to the fact of life – which is never ever with just one side.
For a quick sample: http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/technology-articles/pros-cons-of-living-in-the-era-of-technology/
may be the rulers want to privatise that centre / processing unit. For this purpose, this may be the preparation.
Sir, a decade back i was hearing from sources that it would require investment of over Rs 500 cr to upgrade the system infrastructure. I hope the investment has been made or else the present infrastructure can hardly cope with the flood of returns this year and has crashed. It may be worth considering a suggestion to stagger the filing of returns in 4 or 5 instalments like salary, non audit, audit , business and corporates over 4-5 months so that the website of ITD does not crash.
Really shameful. We have DIGITAL INDIA in mind even with CASHLESS ECONOMY & just on some more strokes, we hampers. We should survey how FACEBOOKS,YOUTUBE ETC works. Where are we lacking. Inspite of strongest & well equipped BSNL machinery in world, we are at this position.
And ITR due date extended by 5 days. Will for these 5 days IT website will work, any guarantee ??
The pro-(A)gressive rulers knows only privatisation in case of an undertaking. in case of dept. !!! how do they justice to people..
? action they can take against employees of this dept. Employees know how much and from where these rulers are getting to meet election etc. expenditure.
Income-tax website is not properly functioning for the past 7-8 days and at the fag end, they extend only for 5 days, after physically and mentally torturing assessees and tax professionals. Let us demand extension for a month and also an apology from CBDT
apologies from those who are least – leaster – leastest bureacrats of this dept/ ministry.
Government of India should revert back to old system of having four due dates say one for salaried another for business followed by audited returns and finally by corporate and others. This will help in avoiding this type of situation in future.
yes. i.e convenient to all
i.e proved that the dept. can never raise to the
occassion. Earlier they used to release atleast by 2
months late. BUT now…! ! !
to save its face , the dept should consider the above suggestion seriously – if it is SERIOUSLY not inteded to derive sadistic pleasure in 1 form or the other every year.
When they made linking of Aadhar no with PAN compulsory and filing of returns of income with more than Rs.5 lakhs through e mode compulsory, they should have anticipated this type of rush and equipped themselves with proper infrastructure. Digital India is nothing but empty rhetoric.
when the aadhar can be linked at a later date also, why is it now made mandatory. It should have processed only on linking. when it could stop processing till signed copy of the return was sent to bangalore or e-verfn. was done, why should it made linking aadhar mandatory.\ BEFORE filing.
Why fix rigidly the time for filing of return. For the delay any way the taxpayer will pay interest. Omit section 80 and free the tax payers from rigid timelines.
quoting of aadhar and linking of aadhar is seen as 2 different activities – IMP. linking and quoting – if at site functions normally….how big is it. Highlighting this while extending due date shows how best the problem is understood. and in future how best it can address if any situation like this arises. All the best
PORTAL
Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)
Brought to you by Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances
Government of India
Home
Lodge a Grievance
Lodge Reminder/Clarification
View Status
Change Password
Forgot Password
Grievance Status
Print || Logout
Status as on 31 Jul 2017
Registration Number : CBODT/E/2017/15954
Name Of Complainant : s prakash
Date of Receipt : 31 Jul 2017
Received by : Central Board of Direct Taxes (Income Tax)
Officer name : Ambrish Kumar
Officer Designation : Deputy Secretary
Contact Address : D/o Revenue,Room No. 255,
CBDT (HQ),North Block
New Delhi110001
Contact Number : 23095452
e-mail : dirhq-cbdt@nic.in
Grievance Description : Respected sir, To day is the last date for filing the Income Tax returns.But since 2 days the WEB site of the CBDT is not working, and the government expect the tax payers to be prompt in filing the returns. The matter was reported in Times of India, and officials of the CBDT responded that there is no major set back in the WEB, but it is 100% FALSE STATEMENT AND FAR FROM THE REALITY. The CBDT is very clever in giving such false statements and the statistics, this is the cause of the fall in the direct tax collections. Many times I have written to your good self to create an alternative body to oversee the working of the CBDT. Because of the GST migration and registration issues the professionals and the business community were held up and could not file the returns on time. More over even today also the GST WEB site is also not working because of the reasons not known to the tax payers, nor to the professionals. Under these circumstances I request your good self to kindly use your good office to set right all these issues and oblige.The Adhar linking is also not happening.As per your statistics displayed on the WEB site only 46% of the registered users have linked Adhar to PAN. Thanking you, Yours faithfully, For Karnataka State Tax Practitioners Ass.,( Reg.,) S.Prakash, Hon’Secretary.
Current Status : RECEIVED THE GRIEVANCE
DARPG Website || Contact Us || National Portal of India || Disclaimer
©2015 Designed, Developed and hosted by National Informatics Centre .
PORTAL
Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)
Brought to you by Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances
Government of India
Home
Lodge a Grievance
Lodge Reminder/Clarification
View Status
Change Password
Forgot Password
Grievance Status
Print || Logout
Status as on 31 Jul 2017
Registration Number : PMOPG/E/2017/0411656
Name Of Complainant : S PRAKASH
Date of Receipt : 31 Jul 2017
Received by : Prime Ministers Office
Officer name : Shri Ambuj Sharma
Officer Designation : Under Secretary (Public)
Contact Address : Public Wing
5th Floor, Rail Bhawan
New Delhi110011
Contact Number : 011-23386447
e-mail : ambuj.sharma38@nic.in
Grievance Description : Respected PM, To day is the last date for filing the Income Tax returns.But since 2 days the WEB site of the CBDT is not working, and the government expect the tax payers to be prompt in filing the returns. The matter was reported in Times of India, and officials of the CBDT responded that there is no major set back in the WEB, but it is 100% FALSE STATEMENT AND FAR FROM THE REALITY. The CBDT is very clever in giving such false statements and the statistics, this is the cause of the fall in the direct tax collections. Many times I have written to your good self to create an alternative body to oversee the working of the CBDT. Because of the GST migration and registration issues the professionals and the business community were held up and could not file the returns on time. More over even today also the GST WEB site is also not working because of the reasons not known to the tax payers, nor to the professionals. Under these circumstances I request your good self to kindly use your good office to set right all these issues and oblige. Thanking you, Yours faithfully, For Karnataka State Tax Practitioners Ass.,( Reg.,) S.Prakash, Hon’Secretary.
Current Status : RECEIVED THE GRIEVANCE
DARPG Website || Contact Us || National Portal of India || Disclaimer
©2015 Designed, Developed and hosted by National Informatics Centre .
Whether these Grievances will be taken care by the PMO or the CBDT. Till date I have sent number of grievances to the PMO and the Finance Ministry, CBDT, but non has been answered and they do not care for the grievances only they want the tax.In a country where there is no guarantee of any social security and still small people are paying taxes promptly with all these kind of harassment and tolerating all the action of the Government,but I do not know when it will be exploded by the society.
The way the IT Department and its officials are working, dooms day is not far of for our country. Every year, it is the same story. Still they do not want to improve but, want the assesses & their consultants to improve. It’s really a shame for the entire nation but still no word of remorse from the officials.