Income Tax Return: From mobile app to new payment options – know benefits of new e-filing site

The Income Tax Return (ITR) filing process is paused for six days after scrapping of the e-filing site – incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in – from the midnight of May 31, 2021. The filing process will resume from June 7, 2021, a day after launch of the new e-filing site – incometax.gov.in – on June 6, 2021.

“Considering the overhaul and migration or transition of existing e-filing portal to a completely different platform, a blackout period for usage of the existing portal has been announced by the Government from 1 June 2021 to 6 June 2021 during which the existing income tax portal would not be available for usage to the taxpayers. In order to avoid any inconvenience to taxpayers, the Revenue Department has issued directions to fix any hearing of cases or compliance only from 10 June, 2021 onward. This would give the taxpayers the necessary time to respond well to the new system. Also, If any hearing or compliance which requires submissions online falls during such period, the same shall either be preponed or adjourned and the work items would be rescheduled after the said period,” said Dr. Suresh Surana, founder, RSM India.

“Further, since the necessary compliances for remittances made outside by way of filing of Form 15CA and Form 15CB which are also furnished via the Income Tax portal, it is recommended intending to make any remittance during blackout period from 1st to 6th June 2021 to kindly submit and download their forms by midnight of 31st May, 2021 in order to avoid any inconvenience,” he added.

What will be the advantages of a new site over the current one?

“The new e-filing site is intended to provide the users with convenience and a modern seamless experience by way of providing number of tech savvy benefits to its users,” said Dr. Surana.

Income Tax Return: After May 31 you have to wait for new e-filing site; know what’s in store

“The IT Department will utilise this website for filing tax returns and also for responding to queries and to give out orders like assessments, appeals, exemption and penalties,” said S Ravi, Former Chairman of Bombay Stock Exchange and Founder & Managing Partner of Ravi Rajan & Co.

According to the experts, the new e-filing site is expected to provide following benefits:

Mobile Application

A mobile app will be enabled subsequently, which will facilitate all key portal functions for fulltime access on mobile network. All the important functions of this portal on the desktop will be available on the mobile app. In existing system no mobile app activities were available.

Immediate Processing of ITR

The new e-filing portal will be integrated with immediate processing of Income Tax Returns. This will enable to issue quick refunds to the taxpayers.

New Dashboard

The new e-filing portal will provide a new single dashboard. The dashboard will display all interactions and uploads or pending actions for follow-up by the taxpayer.

Interactive ITR Preparation Software

The taxpayers will be provided with free of cost offline and online ITR preparation software. The taxpayer-friendly software will involve interactive questions which will help taxpayers (even without any prior tax knowledge) in pre-filling the returns and minimising data entry effort in filing their ITRs.

New Call Center

Systems like call centre, tutorials, videos and chatbot or live agent have been embedded in the site to address any taxpayers’ queries. A new call center will be set up assisting the taxpayers with FAQs.

New Online Tax Payment System

To ensure easy payments, the new ITR website also has a new online payment system with multiple payment options like net banking, UPI, credit card and RTGS or NEFT from any account of the taxpayer in any bank, compared to the existing system which only had UPI, Credit Card allowance for payment of taxes.