The new tax payment system will be launched on June 18, 2021 after the advance tax instalment date to avoid any taxpayer inconvenience.
“The new e-filing portal is aimed at providing taxpayer convenience and a modern, seamless experience to taxpayers,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement Saturday.
“This is another initiative by CBDT towards providing ease of compliance to its taxpayers and other stakeholders,” the Board added.
The new e-filing portal will have a free of cost ITR preparation software online and offline with interactive questions to help taxpayers fill out their returns, with pre-filling, for minimizing data entry effort.
To begin with, ITRs 1, 4 will be available for preparation, both online and offline, and ITR 2 ,offline, will be available.
Facility for preparation of ITRs 3, 5, 6, 7 will be made available shortly, the Board said.
Taxpayers will be able to proactively update their profile to provide certain details of income including salary, house property, business/profession which will be used in pre-filling their ITR. Detailed enablement of pre-filling with salary income, interest, dividend and capital gains will be available after TDS and SFT statements are uploaded (due date is June 30th, 2021).
A new call center for taxpayer assistance for immediate answers to taxpayer queries with FAQs, tutorials, videos and chatbot/live agent will also be made available. A mobile app which will have all key portal functions which will be enabled subsequently.
The new portal will also display all interactions or pending actions on a single dashboard for follow-up action by taxpayer.
In preparation for the transition to the new system, the existing e-filing portal will not be available to both taxpayers as well as department officers till June 6, the Board had said last month.
While taxpayers use the e-filing portal to file income tax returns and view other details, officers of the tax department including assessing officers, chief income tax officers for appeal and principal commissioner income tax interact with taxpayers via e-proceedings through the portal.
Officers also use the portal for issuing of notices, show cause notices and getting response to various e-proceedings. issuing questionnaires, summons, letters, responding to outstanding tax demand and even communicating final orders in assessment, appeals, exemption and penalties.