In a departure from the age-old procedure, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has stipulated that the ambitious e-assessment of a taxpayer will henceforth be handled by two officers, instead of the current system involving a single assessing officer (AO). 

CBDT Chairman Sushil Chandra told PTI that the final contours of a pan-India rollout of the scheme were being framed and that it would be launched shortly. 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech today, announced that the electronic assessment of tax returns would be launched in the country, which would "almost eliminate person-to-person contact, leading to greater efficiency and transparency". 

"The only change in the scheme is that from one individual ITO (income tax officer or the AO), the assessment team will now comprise two officers, maybe the AO and another officer of additional or joint commissioner rank," Chandra said. 

Till now, only one AO is responsible for a case under assessment. 

The new measure of deputing two officials for one assessment case is being seen as increasing the level of monitoring as well as aiding the AO to quickly conduct the task. 

Chandra said the scheme would be launched in all the cities where the department had an officer of the rank of principal commissioner. 

"We are building the infrastructure and the scheme will be expanded," he added. 

The CBDT chief said the pilot project being conducted over the last few years had been successful and that 60,000 limited scrutiny cases and a few full scrutiny cases were conducted till now. 

The new regime of e-communication is expected to be voluntary and the taxpayers can take a call on whether to conduct their dealings over the e-system or through the existing procedure of manual submission of documents by visiting the tax office. 

Once the taxpayers register themselves on the official IT web portal, they will get a confirmation through a text message as well as an e-mail. 

The functionality to conduct the e-proceedings would be available for all types of notices, questionnaires and letters issued under various sections of the I-T Act, the CBDT had earlier said. 

The CBDT is the policy-making body of the IT department. #casansaar (Source - PTI, Economic Times)