Income tax payers e-filing portal made mandatory

Ludhiana, June 26, 2014; Punjab Tax Bar Association (PTBA) in its office-bearers meeting held on Thursday has urged upon the Chairman Central Board of Direct Taxes (IT Department), New Delhi to withdrawal & press release dated June 19 this year being impracticable to implement at present which has made it mandatory for all tax payers to have valid contact details registered in e-filing portal. According to Ashok Juneja, President & B.R.Kaushal, Secretary General, Punjab Tax Bar Association (PTBA) said that now all the e-filing users may immediately update & authenticate their correct contact details so that communications may be sent to the valid mobile number & e-mail id.

They further said that one mobile number or e-mail id can be used for a maximum of 4 users accounts at the primary contact mobile number & e-mail id in e-filing. This is to ensure that family members(not exceeding 4 separate users) not having personal e-mail or mobile can be covered under a common e-mail or mobile, but in general taxpayers should have their own unique e-mail id & mobile registered with the department. Rajpal Gupta, Senior Vice President & Lalit Takyar, General Secretary, highlighted that the low availability of internet facility in India especially in villages & smaller cities the move is the one which is not appreciated by tax professionals. Most of the assesses do have their mobile numbers but only a few assesses would be present who have their own e-mail ids too.

They further said one more practical difficulty may be in registration of Non-Residents, who do not have mobile facility in India. It is not known, if they can register with foreign mobile number.

Arun Kanwal & Rupinder Kansal, Secretaries said that it is not possible for the small traders, shop keepers to have their personal email id. Earlier the professionals used their e mail ids to register an assesse and all the correspondence such as intimations u/s 143(1), 245 were received on the emails of professional and were replied by the professionals.

Tarlok Bhalla, Joint Secretary & Inder Sain Sharma, Finance Secretary (PTBA) highlighted that most of the assesse who file their returns are not educated, some don`t even know to read/write English, they don`t even have their email ids and those who even have created their IDs don`t know how to use the same or actively do not use their ids.

Sudhir Sehgal, Co-Patron (PTBA) stated that the inadvertent mistakes can occur while paying the taxes online, therefore a correction system should be made applicable to challan in respect of online payments of taxes also.

Juneja & Kaushal said that the circular should be immediately withdrawn first government authorities should discuss their requirement which makes them take such decisions, with various bodies like ICAI, Tax Practitioner Associations, Business Associations etc. Instead of simplifying the process of e filing, the government is making the whole process even more complex at a time when the due date of filing too near.