Finance Ministry vide a Press Release dated 08th September 2021 has informed about the progress of removing the technical glitches by the Infosys of the new e-filing portal of the income-tax which was rolled out and launched on 7th June 2021. Since then complaints were raised for the non-functioning of the portal and the consequential harassment to the taxpayers. For these reasons, the government has to extend the time limits of various compliances under the Income-tax Act.
Interestingly, the press release only states that “a number of technical issues are being progressively addressed” rather than broadly specifying or detailing the glitches that were addressed. Nevertheless, many menus like rectification u/s 154, Vivad se Vishwas, etc. are still not available on the new portal.
On the other hand, it provides data of numbers of users logged in, number of returns filed, number of notices generated, issued, seen, responded, etc . without any comparatives. Stand-alone figures have no analytical values. Nevertheless, the government has provided the data to convince that the portal is gradually working smoothly.
Readers are aware that the government has given time to Infosys till 15th September 2021 to resolve all the issues. The taxpayers have to file their return of income in non-audit cases by 30th September 2021. Though extension of ITR filing due date is imperative, still there is no announcement from the government till date.
Read the full text of the Press Release dated 8th September 2021 on Updates of the new e-filing portal.
PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Finance
New Delhi, 8th September, 2021
e-Filing portal of the Income Tax Department - updates
The e-Filing portal of the Income Tax Department (www.incometax.gov.in) was launched on 7th June, 2021. Taxpayers and professionals have reported glitches and difficulties in the portal since then. The Ministry of Finance has been regularly monitoring the resolution of issues with Infosys Ltd which is the Managed Services Provider for the project.
A number of technical issues are being progressively addressed and there has been a positive trend reflected in the statistics of the various filings on the portal. Over 8.83 crore unique taxpayers have logged in till 7th September, 2021 with a daily average of over 15.55 lakh in September, 2021. The Income Tax Return (ITR) filing has increased to 3.2 lakh daily in September, 2021 and 1.19 crore ITRs for AY 2021-22 have been filed. Of these, over 76.2 lakh taxpayers have used the online utility of the portal to file the returns.
It is encouraging to note that over 94.88 lakh ITRs have also been e-verified, which is necessary for processing by the Centralized Processing Center. Of this, 7.07 lakh ITRs have been processed.
Taxpayers have been able to view over 8.74 lakh Notices issued by the Department under the Faceless Assessment/Appeal/Penalty proceedings, to which, over 2.61 lakh responses have been filed. An average of 8,285 Notices for e-proceedings are being issued and 5,889 responses are being filed in September, 2021 on a daily basis.
Over 10.60 lakh Statutory Forms have been submitted including 7.86 lakh TDS statements, 1.03 lakh Form 10A for registration of Trusts/institutions, 0.87 lakh Form 10E for arrears of salary, 0.10 lakh Form 35 for Appeal.
Aadhaar- PAN linking has been done by 66.44 lakh taxpayers and over 14.59 lakh e-PAN have been allotted. These two facilities are being availed of by over 0.50 lakh taxpayers on a daily basis in September, 2021.
It is reiterated that the Department is continuously engaged with Infosys to ensure a smooth filing experience to taxpayers.
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