Server glitches, delay in Form-16 infuriate income tax payers in city
Neeraj Bagga
Amritsar, July 17
Online income tax payers are irked over delay in the arrival of Form-16 and frequent server glitches which prevents them from filing their returns timely.
The majority of the taxpayers, tax return preparers and chartered accountants stated that most of their clients received Form-16 only in the first week of this month. Earlier, they used to receive it in June. There was consensus among them over the reason for this delay — General Election. They said that most government employees were engaged in Lok Sabha election related duties. This led to a delay in release of Form-16 this year, they pointed out.
Sahil Dhawan, a chartered accountant, said an assessee should get the Form-16 before June 15 but it did not happen this time. There were several glitches in the website run by the Income Tax Department used to file annual returns. Downloading the Annual Information Statement (AIS) and Taxpayers Information Summary (TIS) took a very long time and some information related to shares and interest came incorrect. While uploading the return, various errors cropped up and assessees were unable to upload the return. Often the standard reply was ‘System error, please contact customer care’.
Accentuating their trouble was the inconsistent functioning of the server. They stated that the functioning of the server has been erratic since July 3. There were times when they did not function for hours on several days. They were unable to generate challans and tax deposits were not reflected. Moreover, their clients did not receive the OTP as it was not generated at all.
The UIDAI server suffered glitches so frequently that taxpayers did not get OTPs. For instance, on July 15, they were unable to download even an acknowledgement.
When approached, Income Tax Officer Mira Nagpal stated that there has been some disruption in the online filing of income tax returns. The problem was duly brought to the notice of the higher authorities. She added that the server was now functioning without interruptions.
