Glitches bug Income Tax portal, users harried

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 28

Technical glitches continue to affect the functioning of the new income tax portal, restricting taxpayers and practitioners from carrying out tax-related works.

The Income Tax Department had launched the new e-filing portal on June 7. Since then, it continues to face technical issues. Practitioners claim the portal has not been working since its launch in June, the peak time of filing returns.

Even as the deadline for filing the I-T returns is September 30, many want to file it well on time to avoid the last minute rush. There are others who want to avail home or other loans for which the latest ITR is mandatory. Also, taxpayers from whom excess TDS was collected usually file their returns early to get refund on time.

Working on it: FM

Infosys is closely working with the ICAI as well as the Finance Ministry. At least from what I hear, there is definitely a lot of improvement. —Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister

Solution by next month

CBDT sources said the department expected the website to function normally by mid-Aug

Keshav Garg, a city-based tax practitioner, said, “Taxpayers, mainly those who need loans, are facing a tough time. They are unable to complete the paper work for processing of their applications.”

“I couldn’t file my I-T return owing to technical glitches,” said Ravi Bhateja of Mohali. He said due to improper functioning of the portal, taxpayers were not even able to file reply to assessment notices.

Sources claimed there were many taxpayers whose return for the previous year had not yet been processed. “The portal has major glitches even till date. Our work is severely hampered,” said another tax consultant. The sources said even the software provider on which CAs were dependent was not able to offer any solution. It seemed that there was a delay in releasing API (Application Programming Interface) by the department, they said. In 2019, Infosys was awarded the contract to develop the new I-T portal to reduce the time for processing returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds.

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