Government Allows Manual Filing Of Tax Forms As New Portal Face Glitches

The earnings tax division on Monday allowed handbook submitting of sure types after the brand new tax submitting portal continued to face tech glitches even after per week of its launch.

The I-T division issued a round permitting handbook submitting of Form 15CA/15CB (required for international remittances) with banks until June 30, in order that enterprise transactions could go on.

The types will likely be uploaded on-line on the e-filing portal later, it added.

The new portal, www.incometax.gov.in, was launched final Monday (June 7), with the tax division in addition to the federal government saying it was aimed toward making compliance extra taxpayer-friendly.

But customers complained of technical points from the very first day and never all the pieces has been mounted even after per week, chartered accountants (CAs) stated, including that taxpayers are unable to view previous e-filed returns and plenty of options/ amenities proceed to be marked ''coming quickly''.

In an announcement, the earnings tax division stated, "In view of the difficulties reported by taxpayers in electronic filing of Income Tax Forms 15CA/15CB on the portal www.incometax.gov.in, it has been decided that taxpayers can submit the aforesaid Forms in manual format to the authorised dealers till June 30, 2021."

The I-T division additionally suggested authorised sellers to simply accept such types until June 30, 2021 for the aim of international remittances.

"A facility will be provided on the new e-filing portal to upload these forms at a later date for the purpose of generation of the Document Identification Number," the assertion added.

Any one who must make a international outward remittance, must file a web-based kind/ declaration in Form 15CA specifying nature of transaction and quantity of earnings tax deducted on such international remittance.

In sure circumstances, this Form 15CA can also be backed by a chartered accountant's certificates in Form 15CB, who certifies that acceptable earnings tax has been deducted on such remittance. Such types (15CA and 15CB) had been required to be crammed on-line utilizing earnings tax e-filing portal.

Nangia & Co LLP Partner Shailesh Kumar stated as a result of shutdown of outdated e-filing portal publish May 31, 2021 and technical snags being confronted with the brand new portal, submitting of on-line Forms 15CA and 15CB has not been potential until now.

"This had created a significant hardship for businesses, which required payment to be made outside India, for placing the orders or for obtaining licenses or meeting their commercial obligations.

"However, banks weren't allowing international remittance, for need of Form 15CA/15CB. This sensible drawback had introduced many enterprise transactions on a standstill," Mr Kumar said.

Realising the hardships of businesses, the government has issued this circular allowing manual filing of Form 15CA/15CB with banks till June 30, so that business transactions may go on despite the technical snags in new e-filing portal, he added.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman herself had asked Infosys -- the vendor which created the portal -- and its Chairman Nandan Nilekani to fix the technical glitches.

A day after the launch of the portal, social media users had flagged glitches in the new e-filing website to the finance minister.

Following that, Ms Sitharaman took to Twitter and asked Infosys and its chairman to fix the problem.

Replying to the tweet, Mr Nilekani had said Infosys is working to fix the glitches.

Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds.

Mr Kumar said starting from the struggle to log in to the portal to important features such ''e-proceedings'' tabs being unavailable with a message displayed ''coming soon'', there is anxiousness among the taxpayers and tax professionals with respect to orders being passed and non-compliance of notices without getting a sufficient opportunity to present a case.

"The taxpayers might face penalty penalties for causes past their management. Also, taxpayers are dealing with a serious problem for remitting funds overseas as they're unable to challenge Form 15CA/ CB.

"Even after one week of going live, the aforesaid are not minor glitches and require immediate attention/ resolution," Kumar stated.

The new IT portal, relatively than being user-friendly, is popping out to be a nightmare presently, he added.

AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan stated the frequent points incessantly confronted on the portal since final week contains login taking 10-Quarter-hour, incapacity to file responses to the evaluation notices, knowledge associated to previous filings not being seen on the portal and e-proceedings module not being totally practical.

"New income tax portal needs to be fixed at the earliest; numerous errors and glitches are causing inconvenience for the taxpayers and tax professionals," Mohan added.

Deloitte India Partner Aarti Raote stated the brand new tax portal has raised expectations from all. However, many who accessed the location felt it was sluggish and several other current options had been additionally not accessible.

"Users were faced with access and login challenges. The tax department has also indicated that the Digital Signature would need to be re-registered on account of security reasons. Thus benefits of the new portal would be seen when these initial glitches are addressed," Raote added.

Dhruva Advisors LLP Partner Sandeep Bhalla stated the classification interface of the brand new web site appears to be consumer pleasant with consumer manuals for every sort of customers, however the website itself is fairly sluggish and takes fairly a while for small issues like updating of profile.

"A basic thing such as changing password could take several minutes. The various forms required to be filed for lower withholding applications... are difficult to find. The data of earlier rectifications etc filed on the earlier e-portal does not reflect and throws up error message," Mr Bhalla added.

One typically wonders on the timing for the brand new launch when the advance tax timing was not far away and deadline for completion of assessments is finish of the month, which has been prolonged a number of instances solely as a result of pandemic and now timing of this glitch, he stated.

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