Revamped tax-filing portal is still giving taxpayers trouble

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Summary

Tax experts and taxpayers report issues with the portal even after two months of its launch

The government has launched a revamped income tax filing portal—www.incometax.gov.in—aimed at improving the experience of taxpayers and to make the process of filing of income tax return (ITR) seamless by providing pre-filled information to taxpayers. It was to also facilitate immediate processing of tax returns to quickly issue refunds.

However, even after close to two months of the portal’s launch, taxpayers are facing several problems as it is not functioning properly. Social media platforms such as Twitter are flooded with complaints from taxpayers. Here are some glitches that tax experts and taxpayers have reported they are facing with the new tax portal.

Rectification requests: If there is a mistake in the ITR processed by the tax department, taxpayers should be able to submit a rectification request at the portal. “The functionality is not yet enabled at the portal," said Tarun Kumar, a New Delhi-based chartered accountant.

E-verification of ITR: The process of filing of ITR is complete only if the ITR is verified. However, taxpayers are facing problems in e-verifying returns. “There are many instances where the Aadhaar OTP is not coming to the registered mobile number," said Kumar.

“Taxpayers can complete e-verification by two methods—one is based on Aadhaar OTP, and the other on net banking. E-verification is smooth by Aadhaar-based method. But users are facing problems in net banking-based e-verification. As of now, taxpayers have adequate time to complete e-verification. Hopefully this issue will also be sorted out soon," said Sujit Bangar, founder, Taxbuddy.com.

Not able to file ITR 3: “Many users have income from trading in shares, futures and options, intraday trading, etc. Taxpayers are unable able to file returns as ITR 3 utility is not released. All these users should not wait for paying self-assessment tax, if any. Early payment of tax will save on interest," said Bangar. Many taxpayers have had to delay filing of ITR owing to these issues, but they must be aware that they may have to pay penal interest if they delay filing taxes if they have tax due.

Bank for refund: In case the tax paid by the assessee is higher than the tax liability, tax refund can be claimed. To make such claims, the taxpayer has to feed in the information of bank account in which he would want the refund to be credited. The taxpayer, however, should ensure that the bank account in which the income tax refund is to be received is pre-validated.

“There are issues while validating the bank account for a refund. In certain cases, even if the account has been pre-validated, the portal is showing the error that the bank account selected for refund is not validated," said Kumar.

Legal heirs face issues: If somebody has to file a return on behalf of a deceased person, he/she has to first register as a legal heir on an e-filing website. Income earned by a deceased person till the date of his death is considered as the deceased person’s income. The legal representative is required to file the ITR on behalf of the deceased person and pay taxes thereon.

“A few days ago, the functionality to register as a representative was only allowed to be availed if the profile of taxpayer was 100% complete on the portal. Therefore, such taxpayers were unable to register as ‘legal heir’ to file returns on behalf of the deceased. Since no one was able to complete profiles entirely (100%) on the new portal despite entering all details, the tax department has now removed the requirement that the profile should be complete. However, still, the functionality to register as the representative assessee has not yet been made available," said Kumar.

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