Nirmala Sitharaman held review meeting regarding the functioning of the new income tax portal, asked to remove the shortcomings on priority

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked Infosys to immediately remove the flaws coming in the new portal of the Income Tax Department. On the other hand, the major company in the software sector assured that five technical glitches including checking the previous ITR, enhancing the electronic process are expected to be resolved within a week.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a review meeting with the officials of Infosys regarding the working of the new portal regarding the technical difficulties being faced in the new income tax e-filing portal. The portal was released on June 7, since then it has been facing technical problems. In over 700 emails received in the last few days by various stakeholders, the Finance Ministry had pointed out more than 2,000 deficiencies in the new portal. In these, 90 problems related to the new portal were specifically mentioned. Infosys has prepared a new e-portal of the Income Tax Department.

Discussion of problems

Sitharaman was accompanied by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj, CBDT Chairman Jagannath Mohapatra and other senior officials of the Finance Ministry. During this, point-wise discussions were held with the officials of Infosys regarding the problems being faced in the new income tax e-portal. According to an official statement issued after the meeting, the Finance Minister asked Infosys to make the Income Tax portal more practical and simple.

Sitaraman expressed deep concern about the various problems being faced by the users in the new portal. She said that the portal should give a better experience to the taxpayers. During the meeting, Infosys CEO Salil Parekh and Chief Operating Officer Pravin Rao along with other officials of the company noted the issues raised by various stakeholders. He acknowledged the technical issues being faced in the functioning of the portal and apprised them of the latest status and efforts being made to resolve them.

Infosys assured the government about the remaining technical issues that their team is working on it and informed about the possible deadline for completion of the work. Besides representatives of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP), 10 tax professionals also participated in the meeting.

A variety of flaws

This new portal of the Income Tax Department was started on June 7 but since that day many flaws have come to the fore. It is taking more login time, problem in issuance of OTP for Aadhaar verification and Income Tax returns of previous years are also not available in it. In a statement issued after the meeting, ICAI said that it has been asked to continue to provide necessary information and support to CBDT and Infosys for a speedy resolution of the issues in this regard.

The new e-filing portal of the Income Tax Department www.incometax.gov.in was introduced on June 7. This tax portal can also be used by common income taxpayers to file their annual returns. In this, the return can be filed in the assessment year 2021-22 for the income earned in the financial year of 2020-21. The last date for filing returns for individual income taxpayers is September 30. Earlier in the annual general meeting of Infosys, top company executives said on Saturday that they are working on resolving the issues and have found success in some cases.