FM Nirmala Sitharaman asks Infosys to fix all issues on new I-T portal on precedence; 5 glitches to be resolved in a week

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on June 22 requested Infosys to fix all issues on the new Income Tax portal instantly, whereas the software program main stated not less than 5 technical glitches, together with viewing previous ITRs and e-proceedings, are anticipated to be resolved inside a week.

As quite a few glitches have continued to mar the functioning of the new Income Tax efiling portal for 2 weeks since its launch on June 7, the Finance Ministry had referred to as Infosys — the seller which developed the positioning — for a assembly to hear out stakeholder issues and counsel remedial measures for fixing the issues.

The Ministry had acquired greater than 700 emails from stakeholders detailing over 2,000 issues, together with 90 distinctive issues/issues with the new portal.

During the web assembly on June 22, which was additionally attended by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj, CBDT Chairman Jagannath Mohapatra and different senior officers, Ms. Sitharaman exhorted Infosys to work on the tax portal to make it extra humane and user-friendly.

The Finance Minister expressed her deep concern on the varied issues being confronted by the stakeholders in the new portal, which was anticipated to present a seamless expertise to taxpayers.

“The FM asked Infosys to address all issues without further loss of time, improve their services, redress grievances on priority as it was impacting taxpayers adversely,” an official assertion issued after the assembly stated.

During the assembly, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh and COO Pravin Rao, together with different firm officers took be aware of the issues highlighted by the stakeholders.

They additionally acknowledged the technical issues in the functioning of the portal and shared the standing of the decision in regards to the issues highlighted by the stakeholders.

“They informed that Infosys has been working to fix the technical issues noticed in the functioning of the portal and that they have augmented the resources for execution of the project on the hardware as well as the application side and that some of the issues have already been identified and fixed,” the assertion added.

For the opposite remaining technical issues, Infosys has assured the federal government that their groups have been working on them and gave the anticipated timelines inside which the issues would be resolved.

“…Issues such as e-proceedings, Form 15CA/15CB [used for remittances], TDS statements, DSC (Digital Signature Certificate), viewing of past ITRs etc. are expected to be resolved in about a week. It was also decided that the timelines mentioned by Infosys to redress the issues would also be placed in the public domain in due course,” the assertion issued by the Income Tax division stated.

During the assembly, Ms. Sitharaman emphasised that enhanced taxpayer service is a crucial precedence for the federal government and each effort ought to be made to amplify the identical, it added.

She additionally hoped that the optimistic engagement between taxpayers, tax professionals and the federal government would proceed in the longer term and guaranteed them that the federal government is responsive to their issues and is proactively dedicated to improve taxpayer service and expertise, the assertion stated.

The assembly was additionally attended by 10 tax professionals, together with representatives of ICAI and the All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP).

The efiling portal, www.incometax.gov.in, was launched on June 7, which the tax division in addition to the federal government stated was geared toward making compliance extra taxpayer-friendly.

However, the portal confronted glitches, together with longer logging in time, incapacity to generate OTP for Aadhaar validation, non-availability of ITRs for previous years.

Stakeholders have additionally highlighted weak consumer interface, incapacity to view outdated demand, grievances and intimation orders because the issues that want to be fastened.

This is the portal that frequent revenue taxpayers may even use to file their annual returns for the evaluation yr 2021-22 for revenue earned in the monetary yr 2020-21. The final date for submitting such returns by particular person taxpayers is September 30.

Ahead of Tuesday’s assembly with Infosys, the Finance Ministry had on June 16 invited written representations from stakeholders concerning glitches or issues confronted on the new revenue tax e-filing portal.

Tax consultants have submitted their representations on technical and efficiency issues, issues of lacking information, modules which aren’t working and prompt that the new portal be launched after ample beta testing.

Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation revenue tax submitting system to cut back processing time for returns from 63 days to at some point and expedite refunds.

Answering a shareholder’s query on the Infosys AGM final week, Infosys COO had knowledgeable that shut to one lakh revenue tax returns have been filed to date on the portal.

A day after the launch of the Income Tax Department’s new tax submitting portal, social media customers had flagged glitches in the portal to the finance minister. Following that, Ms. Sitharaman took to Twitter on June 8 and requested Infosys and its Chairman Nandan Nilekani to fix the technical glitches.

Replying to the tweet, Mr. Nilekani had stated Infosys is working to fix the glitches.