The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended e-assessment scheme to two more Indian cities, namely Kolkata and Hyderabad. The online assessment scheme for tax payers commenced as a pilot project in 2015-16 and included five cities only. What is e Assessment or ITR? Why is paperless Scrutiny Assessment? Which cities are covered under E Assessment of ITR? What is the procedure for e Assessment of ITR?
Assessment of Income Tax Return
Then, Income Tax Deparment runs an assessment under various sections of the income tax law.Assessment under Sec 143(1)
This is an initial checking of the return and the total income or loss computed after adjusting for any errors in calculation or inconsistencies. The intimation specifies the amount payable by the taxpayer, or the amount of refund due. In the intimation, there are two columns giving a comparison of the information filed in the return and the details considered by I-T.
A taxpayer must verify the details mentioned in the intimation. If there is no variance between the tax department and your calculations, nothing needs to be done. If you have paid less tax than that computed by I-T, the intimation becomes a Notice of Demand under Section 156. If you are convinced that the tax departments computation is correct, you will have to pay the balance tax. But if you feel it is incorrect, the same can be rectified with an application.
Assessment under Sec 143(3)
Here, I-T does a detailed scrutiny of the taxpayers return to authenticate his claims and deductions. If the assessing officer is of the view that the taxpayer has understated income, he will serve the taxpayer a notice to attend his office and produce evidence. The provisions of such a notice are governed by Section 143(2). In other words, for an assessment under Section 143(3), the assessing officer will have to serve a notice under Section 143(2). Notice under Section 143(2) should be served within six months from the end of the financial year in which the return is filed. The taxpayer or his representative will have to appear before the assessing officer and show all the documents of income, deductions and losses.
Tax returns are randomly selected for scrutiny and the notice does not indicate any crime. It simply indicates an investigation to find out if any income has escaped assessment. A taxpayer need not panic if his case is up for scrutiny and he must reply to all queries raised either through a letter or by appearing in person. The tax official can demand salary certificate or Form 16 (which has details of the gross salary paid and taxes deducted), rent receipts and rent agreement (if any rent exemption is claimed) and bank statements. The TDS certificate in Form 16A must be preserved and produced before the income tax official.
The notice has a predefined format with the taxpayers name, address and permanent account number, the year for which it has been issued and the date and time when the taxpayer should appear before the tax officer. If one plans to send an authorised representative, one must issue a valid power of attorney in his favour. If the assessee or his representative cannot be present, an adjournment application should be filed before the date of hearing.
Assessment under sec 144
Under this Section, an assessment is carried out as per the best judgement of the assessing officer. This is done if the taxpayer has not filed the return within the due date prescribed under Section 139(1), a belated return under Section 139(4) or a revised return under Section 139(5). Assessment under Section 144 can be made within two years from the end of the relevant assessment year.
e Assessment of ITR or Income Tax Return
e-Assessment means that instead of the assessee meeting the Assessing Officer, he can use email to submit the information required to Assessing Officer. When scrutiny is completed, the tax officer shall pass the order and email it in PDF format to the taxpayer.It is a welcome initiative taken by the Government and will help in speedy completion of scrutiny assessment. It will also save time and efforts of visiting tax office every time when a hearing takes place. Although this pilot project is an experiment on noncorporate taxpayers in few cities, once successful, it could soon extend to other cities as well where taxpayers at large benefit from it.
It is part of e-governance initiative,a tax payer friendly scheme for assessment through email. It can be done 24X7 and will save precious time of tax payer. The following image shows the advertisement in Times of India (Bangalore) on 31 Jul 2016 regarding e Assessment of ITR
e Assessment of ITR Paperless Scrutiny Assessment
In October 2015, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) initiated (vide CBDT letter no. F. No. 225/267/2015-ITA-II, dated October 19, 2015) the concept of using email-based communication for paperless scrutiny proceedings. It was decided to launch a pilot project, comprising non corporate taxpayers in 5 cities, namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Chennai. Initially 100 taxpayers were identified in each of these cities from the cases which have been selected for scrutiny based on Annual Information Return (AIR)/ Central Information Branch (CIB) information or form 26AS mismatch. With the consent of these selected taxpayers, tax officials conducted the e-hearing through their official email IDs with the taxpayers at the email IDs as provided by them in their tax returns.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended e-assessment scheme to two more Indian cities, namely Kolkata and Hyderabad.
However, in case some practical issues crop up during the online assessment of the cases, the tax payers could avail the offline mode of assessment. The practical difficulties, for example could occur in submission of scanned copies via e-mail when the documents’ file is heavy in size. In such as case, the tax payer could can reach out to the assessing officer and submit his/her documents in physical form, although one will have to record the reasons for the same before submission of the hard copy of the documents.
The key features of the e Assesment of ITR Income Tax Return are
Tax officer shall email the signed and scanned notice/ questionnaire in PDF format using his designated email address. (Official designation based email address under the domain @incometax.gov.in)
The email will be sent to the taxpayer’s email address as provided in his/ her income-tax return of the relevant tax year or in the last income tax return furnished. Alternatively, the taxpayer can inform in writing where any other email address should be used for electronic communication.
The subject line of the email sent by the tax officer should be in the format – (PAN) – (Assessment Year) – Notice u/s – ______- (Serial no. of notice)
The taxpayer while responding, also needs to mention the subject in the format – (PAN) – (Assessment Year) – Reply – (Serial no. of notice)
Response should be submitted in PDF format as attachments and the size of attachments in a single email cannot exceed 10MB.
Where the size of attachment exceeds 10MB, the taxpayer shall split the attachment and send in as many emails as may be required to adhere to the 10MB size limit. However, in each such attachment, taxpayer is required to clarify the corresponding notice number and date in the footer to which the attachment relates, and also number the pages in continuation to ensure proper linkage.
All email communications between the tax officer and taxpayer shall also be copied to e-assessment@incometax. gov.in for audit trail purposes.
In case of delivery failure on the taxpayer’s e mail id, the tax officer can use any other email address of the taxpayer as available with the tax authorities.
Where the notice is not sent by email due to technical reason such as delivery failure, mail box full etc., the tax officer shall send the notice through any other prescribed valid mode, and also record the reason for not serving the notice by email. A copy of email error message as received by the tax officer shall be forwarded to eassessment@incometax.gov.in and the subject line should contain – (PAN) – (Assessment Year) – Error.
Similarly, where taxpayer is not able to send the response by email due to technical reasons, the response can be submitted physically. Copy of email error message as received by the taxpayer shall be forwarded to eassessment@incometax.gov.in and the subject line should contain – (PAN) – (Assessment Year) – Error.
Once the scrutiny is completed, the tax officer shall pass the order and email it in PDF format to the taxpayer.
The record of all the email communications will be available to the taxpayer under “My Account” and can be accessed through login on efiling portal, namely http://incometaxindiaefiling.g ov.in
The aforementioned procedures are applicable to selected noncorporate taxpayers, and can be extended to other taxpayers like corporates etc. or other proceedings as may be notified, by the CBDT subsequently.
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- Challan 280: Payment of Income Tax
- Income Tax Notice :Sections,What to check,How to reply
- E-verification of Income Tax Returns and Generating EVC through Aadhaar, Net Banking
- Compliance Income Tax Return Filing Notice
- Notice for Adjusting Refund Against Outstanding Tax Demand, Section 245
- Defective return notice under section 139(9)
- List of articles related to Income Tax at one place to nderstand Income Tax, How to Fill ITR,Income Tax Notice…
It is a tax payer friendly scheme for assessment through email. Will save the headache of going to Income Tax office and can be done from anywhere 24X7. What do you think of the e Assessment of ITR?
Dear Anish walia
you can resend the Itr ackg with sign
Congratulations on filing your return. Don’t worry..
You can verify throughITR-V receipt status
You can also call CPC at 1800-425- 2229(Toll free)
I have e filled my return first time in assessment year 2016-17. I have received the receipt with cpc no. through email but its not having acknowledgement no.
I have signed my return with black gel pen, i am confused because its first time to fill return with my self.
Please suggest me on my email
Thanks and Regards,
Anish.