Income Tax department to roll out PILOT project for scrutiny assessment

The Income Tax department will roll out next week its ‘pilot’ project to conduct scrutiny assessment in an e-environment when they begin sending queries through email to 500 “select” taxpayers without calling them to its offices.

The department had recently said it would launch a ‘pilot’ project in this regard and the first set of e-communications will be emailed to 100 chosen people each in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai regions.

“The department has sought the willingness of select taxpayers to conduct their scrutiny proceedings through email after the CBDT recently asked for the immediate roll out of the project. The response has been enthusiastic and the emails will be sent from the next week,” a senior I-T official said.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes, the apex policy-making body of the tax department, had recently asked the department to “initiate the concept of using email for corresponding with taxpayers and sending through emails the questionnaire, notice etc at the time of scrutiny proceedings and getting responses from them.”

“This would eliminate the necessity of visiting the Income Tax offices by the taxpayers, particularly in smaller cases, involving limited issues and where taxpayer is able to provide details required by the Assessing Officer (AO) without necessitating his physical presence,” the order in this regard had said.

CBDT Chairperson Anita Kapur, in a recent interview to PTI, had said that the “first-of-it’s kind initiative” is aimed at making life easy for taxpayers.

“We have been thinking how can we make life easier for taxpayers especially for those who are in the middle and the slightly higher tax bracket. So, now we are thinking of allowing that when a notice is issued in an assessment or scrutiny case, the taxpayer can send the department an e-response,” she had said.

The official added these ‘pilot’ project scrutiny assessments will be completed in the stipulated time frame and a record-sheet of one-to-one communications will be sent to the CBDT by the end of this year so that it can be implemented on a nation-wide basis from 2016-17 financial year. (Financial Express)