The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified the format and procedure for the taxman and taxpayers to usher in an ambitious pilot project of using emails as the new mode of communication between the two sides, as part of the government’s bid to reduce grievances of the tax-paying public.

An official notification has been issued which spells out the procedure, formats and standards for ensuring “secured transmission” of emails between the assessing officer (AO) of the information technology (IT) department and the assessee stating all communication between the two sides will be done through PDF file format and over bonafide email addresses.

The new notification is a follow up of an amendment made by the CBDT in the Income Tax Act in December last year, which allowed emails to become the new mode of interaction tool between the AO and the tax-paying individual.

Under the new procedures, the taxman will send emails for issuing notices and summons through the government registered ‘@incometax.gov.in’ email domain and the attached PDF document will have his or her designation and signature.

In response to such an IT notice, a taxpayer will have to use his registered email address with the department to submit the details called for, in a PDF format.

“In case the total size of the attachments exceed 10 MB (megabyte) then the assessee shall split the attachment and send in as many emails as may be required to adhere to the limit of attachment size of 10 MB per email,” the CBDT notification issued on Wednesday said.

It said, “any email, in response to the notice issued by the AO, received from the primary email address of the assessee shall be considered as a valid response to the notice”.

The CBDT, in the same notification, has also mandated that the taxman will maintain an audit trail of all this e-communication with a taxpayer in the central database of the IT department for future reference and as a record management of the entire transaction. The new directives also allow a taxpayer to physically submit the reply of such e-notices in case there is a technical problem in their email like a situation of email failure or a full mailbox.

“This shall be treated as adequate compliance,” it said. PTI