New Income Tax e-Filing Portal Launched

New Income Tax e-Filing

Monday Morning News began with the I-T Department announcing that they were at the final stages in the roll-out of the new Portal. “We are as excited about the new Portal as our users! We are at the final stages in the roll-out of the new Portal, and it will be available shortly. We appreciate your patience as we work towards making it operational soon,” they said in a tweet. A new taxpayer-friendly e-filing portal of the Income Tax (I-T) Department was launched on June 7th 2021. The new features in the Portal include interactive software that helps in filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) and a call centre for taxpayer assistance.

New ITR e-Filing Website Link

You can access the new e-filing website at https://www.incometax.gov.in/. It will replace the existing Portal, https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home.

Features and Benefits of the New Income Tax Portal

• New taxpayer-friendly Portal integrated with immediate income tax returns (ITRs) to issue quick Income tax refunds to taxpayers.
• All interactions, including uploads or pending actions, will be made available at a single dashboard. The taxpayers will have access to quick follow-up for pending requests easily with the new e-filing portal.
• Free of cost Income Tax Return [ITR] preparation software have been made available. It will have interactive questions to help taxpayers with ITRs 1, 4 (online and offline) and ITR 2 (offline). The facility for other ITRs will be available shortly.
• The taxpayers will update their profile on a real-time basis to provide income details, including salary, house property, business or profession, used in pre-filling their ITR. This facility will be available after TDS (tax deducted at source), and SFT (statement of financial transaction) statements are uploaded.
• The new Portal features also include the launch of a new call centre for taxpayer assistance to ensure prompt response to taxpayer queries. The Portal will also include detailed FAQs, user manuals, videos, and interactive sessions with live agents through chat boxes.
• Functionalities for filing ITR Forms, Add tax professionals and Submit responses to Notices in Faceless Scrutiny of Appeals will also be made available. The faceless scrutiny and faceless appeals facility will now be available to taxpayers through this newly launched e-filing portal.
• The new online tax payment system on the new Portal will be introduced that will have multiple new payment options including net banking, UPI, Credit Card and RTGS/NEFT.
• All essential portal functions will also be available on the Mobile App for full-time access on the mobile network.

The press release clarified that it would launch the new tax payment system on June 18th, 2021, after the advance tax instalment date, to avoid any taxpayer inconvenience. However, the existing tax payment is fully operational, which takes place through the NSDL portal. If you do not have any self-assessment tax payable while filing any ITR, you can directly fill the ITR online. However, since the new portal is in development stage, in case you any self-assessment tax liability, you will have to wait for a couple of days.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) framed a policy for the Income Tax Department and the e-filing website used by the taxpayers to file their tax returns and perform other transactions with the Department. The CBDT, on May 20th, 2021, had announced that they would be launching a new income tax filing portal on June 7th 2021, to replace the existing Portal. The current Portal was hauled and was not available for taxpayers and other external stakeholders between June 1st to June 6th, 2021.

The Department had also intimated external entities, including Banks, MCA portal, GST Network, DPIIT, CBIC portal, GeM, DGFT, to ensure that their customers/stakeholders are also informed. The Department has intimated that familiarisation with the new system will take time and that all taxpayers/stakeholders must be patient for the initial period after the new Portal launch.