NewDelhi: Soon, the Income Tax Department will not send notices directly to tax payers but an e-assessment centre has been formed to do so.
The government has framed an E-Assessment Scheme under which a National e-assessment centre will be formed which will send the notice to taxpayers. It will act as an intermediary between the taxpayer and the tax department for scrutiny of cases.
During her Union Budget speech this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the existing system of scrutiny assessments in the Income-tax Department involves a high level of personal interaction between the taxpayer and the Department, which leads to certain undesirable practices on the part of tax officials.
To eliminate such instances, and to give shape to the vision of the Prime Minister Modi, the FM said that a scheme of faceless assessment in electronic mode involving no human interface is being launched this year in a phased manner. To start with, such e-assessments shall be carried out in cases requiring verification of certain specified transactions or discrepancies, she added.
The Finance Minister further said that the cases selected for scrutiny shall be allocated to assessment units in a random manner and notices shall be issued electronically by a Central Cell, without disclosing the name, designation or location of the Assessing Officer.
“The Central Cell shall be the single point of contact between the taxpayer and the Department. This new scheme of assessment will represent a paradigm shift in the functioning of the Income Tax Department”, she said in her speech.
Bureau Report
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