About 4 lakh income tax payers to be scrutinised under new faceless assessment system; over 1 lakh served notices

As part of promoting the new faceless assessment system, about 4 lakh taxpayers will come under the scanner of the Income Tax Department and over a lakh assesses have been served notices seeking explanation on the returns filed, said a media report

The Income Tax (I-T) Department will scrutinise about 4 lakh taxpayers under the new faceless assessment scheme or e-assessment system, said a report in Business Standard.

About 100,000 assesses have been issued notices seeking explanation on the returns filed within 15 days and the last date for sending scrutiny letters ends on 30 September, said the report quoting an official in the know of the matter.

Representational image. Reuters

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Early this month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sithamraman had said that the I-T Department would encourage faceless tax assessment in order to keep the assesses away from harassment, said a report in The Economic Times.

“If technology is used, it will be far more convenient to collect the tax. Engagement with tax administrators is necessary. We want to understand the challenges faced by them,” Sitharaman was quoted as saying in the report.

Last month, Sitharaman had said that the faceless assessment system to scrutinise income tax returns would be fully implemented from the Vijayadashami day on 8 October this year, said a report in The Hindu Business Line.

She had said that under the e-assessment system, which was announced in the Union Budget this year, there was no need of tax officials to conduct face-to-face interaction with any assessee, said the report.

Last month, over 5.65 crore income tax returns (ITR) were filed by taxpayers for the Assessment Year 2019-20 as the deadline ended on 31 August, showing a 4 percent rise in ITR filing over the previous year, according to the tax department data. The total number of income tax returns (ITRs) filed for AY 2018-19 was 5.42 crore.

The government had last year extended the deadline for ITR filing for AY 2018-19 till 31 August 2018, while a special extension till 15 September 2018 was given in this context to the taxpayers of flood-hit Kerala.

In July this year, Sitharaman had asked the taxmen to firmly deal with those who try to evade taxes and game the system but act as facilitators to those who wanted to pay taxes honestly.

While she stressed that taxpayers should treat tax payment as a contribution towards nation-building and not as punishment, the minister asked three investigating wings of the revenue department to share information among themselves to nab evaders.

— With inputs from agencies