Progress in addressing glitches in the income tax portal

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Infosys is “progressively addressing” the tech glitches in the new tax portal as is seen in the “positive” return filing trends, the government has said. Of the 1.2 crore, income-tax returns for 2020-2021 filed so far, over 76.2 lakh taxpayers used the new portal, according to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said. About 95 lakh income-tax returns have been e-verified and nearly 7 lakh having been processed, according to a report in The Times of India.

Taxpayers faced continuous technical glitches new tax portal, www.incometax.gov.in, developed by Infosys. The portal was launched on June 7. Repeated complaints have prompted Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to summon Infosys CEO Salil Parekh to her office. A deadline of September 15 has been fixed for resolving all the issues.

The issue had snowballed into a controversy after a report in Panchjanya attacked Infosys for funding “anti-India forces”. RSS, however, has distanced itself from the report in its mouthpiece.

“The ministry of finance has been regularly monitoring the resolution of issues with Infosys, which is the managed services provider for the project… It is reiterated that the (income tax) department is continuously engaged with Infosys to ensure a smooth filing experience to taxpayers,” CBDT said.

The number of return filing rose to 3.2 lakh daily in September. Also, taxpayers are able to view over 8.7 lakh notices issued under the faceless assessment appeal or penalty proceedings.

“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,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Business Standard had earlier reported that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) was planning to extend the September 30 deadline for ITR filing, considering the tech glitches faced by taxpayers.

With the government indicating that the portal was getting smoother, taxpayers now may complete this important annual financial task of filing tax returns before the deadline.