Income Tax

Income Tax Dept. set to unveil new ITR filing portal on June 7

The Income Tax department is set to launch a new ITR filing portal on June 7, 2021. This new e-filing portal is expected to be more user friendly.  It could be another measure by the department to ensure ease of compliance to its taxpayers. Let’s know more about this development.

What do you mean by an e-filing portal?

An e-filing portal is used by taxpayers to file their individual or business category income tax returns and is also used by them to raise complaints seeking refunds and other services with the tax department.

The taxman uses it for issuing notices, receiving responses from the taxpayer and respond to their queries and also declare final orders such as assessments, appeals, exemption, penalties etc.

Objective of the new portal

The new e-filing portal is aimed at providing taxpayers convenience and a modern and a seamless experience to them. It can be used to file routine ITRs and perform other tax related works.

Transition to the new e-filing portal

It may be noted that the current web portal will be shut for six days period, which means from June 1 till June 6. An order issued by the systems wing of the department stated that the transition from the old portal (www.Incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in) to the new portal (www.incometaxgov.in) would be finished and made operational from June 7. 

The order stated that in preparation of the launch and for migration activities, the current portal won’t be available for a brief period, and it will not be available for both taxpayers and the Income Tax Department officers as well during the said period.

The order further advised that all officers to be directed to fix any hearing or compliances only from 10^th June onwards so that taxpayers get time to respond to the new system. 

Features of the new e-filing portal

The main features of the new e-filing portal are as follows:

• The brand new taxpayer friendly e-filing portal will be integrated with the immediate processing of the income tax returns in order to issue quick refunds to the taxpayers;
• All interactions and uploads or pending actions shall be displayed on one dashboard for follow up action by the taxpayer;
• There shall be an availability of free ITR preparations software offline and online with interactive questions to assist taxpayers to file ITR even without any knowledge of tax with pre-filing, for minimum data entry effort;
• All the vital portal functions on the desktop shall be available on the mobile app, which would be enabled subsequently for full access on the mobile network;
• New call centre for the assistance of taxpayers for immediate answers to the queries of the taxpayers with FAQs, tutorials, videos etc.;
• The new online tax payment system on the new portal shall be subsequently enabled with the multiple new payment options like UPI, net banking, NEFT, RTGS and other methods.

What are the potential benefits of the new ITR e-filing portal?

The new ITR filing portal offers the following benefits:

• Quick processing of returns and refunds

It is expected that ITRs filed will travel faster to the central processing centre, and taxpayers would receive intimations quickly and subsequently, refunds would be generated promptly as well.

• Improved dashboard

The new portal is expected to have a user friendly and improved dashboard that would display actions to be acted upon by the taxpayer. It will remind the taxpayer regarding the compliances required from him, thus prompting them to complete the compliances.

• Simplified ITR preparation software

Pre-filled tax returns based on the data from previous years, along with elaborate instructions, can help taxpayers to file the form without any hassle.

Conclusion

During the period in which the existing income tax portal will not be operational and available (June 1 to 6), the income tax department shall not fix any compliance dates so that taxpayers are not at inconvenience. The new ITR filing portal shall be launched from June 7, 2021, and the hearing of cases or compliances shall be fixed from June 10 onwards so that taxpayers can get familiar with the portal’s new system. 

Read our article: Submit response in the e-compliance portal for Income Tax queries