An Excellent compilation of the Issues & Glitches in the New Income Tax Portal by KSCAAA.

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An Excellent compilation of the Issues & Glitches in the New Income Tax Portal by KSCAA

 

 

KARNATAKA STATE
CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS ASSOCIATION (R)

 CA. Kumar S Jigajinni | President, KSCAA     CA. Pramod Srihari | Secretary, KSCAA

Date: 18th June 2021

To,

Smt. Nirmala Sitaraman
Hon’ble Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs
Government of India, North Block
New Delhi

Respected Madam,

SUBJECT: ISSUES IN THE NEW INCOME TAX E-FILING PORTAL

The Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association (R) (in short ‘KSCAA’) is an Association of Chartered Accountants, registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, in 1957. KSCAA is primarily formed for the welfare of Chartered Accountants and represents before various regulatory authorities to resolve the problems / hardships faced by Chartered Accountants and business community.

We would like to convey our gratitude and congratulate you and your ministry for taking up the pro-active, ambitious and forward looking step of development and launching of new Income tax e-filing portal with the objective of realising many functional improvements, and addition of new features in to the new e-filing portal which inter-alia includes faster processing of refunds to taxpayers, complete reduction of processing time of Income tax returns filed from current level of 63 days to almost 1 day, and to bring in many more better and improved functionalities. The new e-filing portal was expected to replace the existing e-filing portal, it was viewed to create a strong technology backbone by enabling a host of new functionalities to the taxpayers including enhancement of look, feel and usage experience.

Despite the sincere, honest and best efforts of the team working behind in the development of this new portal, it was disheartening to realise that this new portal is almost non-functional from the day of its launch on 7th June 2021 and has witnessed many defects which completely disabled the taxpayers and other stakeholders from performing their legal compliances. The most fundamental and basic defect observed in the case of many users which ideally should not have been there was that the new portal did not even allow the users to login and enter inside their accounts on the portal, which was bizarre.

We at KSCAA have worked closely with multiple stakeholders to understand the issues at hand with respect new portal, we have made efforts to consolidate the same and are enumerating the following issues and also few suggestions with respect to new e-filing portal (these issues are as on 17th of June 2021) –

A. TABLE SHOWING LIST OF ISSUES FACED IN NEW IT PORTAL:

S.No Issues Category Partly or fully Not-functional
1 The field ‘Country’ in the Profile section is not available as a drop down option Data entry Not functional
2 Challan Numbers are not being validated Data validation Partly functional
3 BSR/Challan code which starts with first character ‘0’ is not being recognised & hence error of invalid input is being encountered. Data validation Partly functional
4 Response to outstanding demand is though operational, the tax computation of demand amount could not be still downloaded. Demands Partly functional
5 As required by new portal, the existing DSC’s as registered under legacy portal could not be reregistered on the new portal DSC Partly functional
6 The Chartered Accountants could not add themselves as such and register their DSCs DSC Not functional
7 The tab or option ‘e-Proceedings’ is not available in complete form e-Proceedings Partly functional
8 The existing information and documents related to tax demands raised in legacy portal and are pending for payment by taxpayers could not be found in the new portal e-Proceedings Partly functional
9 The option of filling Form 35 for filing Appeal to CIT(A) not yet available e-Proceedings Not functional
10 The process of generating Form 15CA and 15CB could be only Partly executed but could not be  completed till the end due to specific error messages are being encountered Form

15CA/CB

Partly functional
11 The existing Grievances registered on the legacy portal along with trail of interactions on the same could not be found Interaction data access Partly functional
12 The trail of earlier replies given by taxpayers in response to departmental notices could not be found Interaction data access Partly functional
13 Income tax returns for AY 2021-22 could not be filed ITR Filing Partly functional
14 On selection of option ‘Self’ in the Verification segment of ITR form, the taxpayers name disappears and eventually it ends up with validation errors ITR Filing Partly functional
15 Intimations generated for IT returns processed for AY 20-21 could not be accessed or downloaded ITR Filing Partly functional
16 Application could not be submitted for rectification of IT returns u/s 154 ITR Filing Partly functional
17 Aadhar OTP not enabled for verification of ITR for AY 2021-22. Therefore ITR could not be filed. ITR Filing Partly functional
18 The Json files could not be uploaded for filing of ITR ITR Filing Partly functional
19 The pre-fill option while filing the IT returns is not automatically pulling in the TDS details. ITR Filing Partly functional
20 The ‘Forget password’ feature of the portal not operational Login related Partly functional
21 The login page does not require the taxpayer to enter Captcha code Login related Partly functional
22 In some cases an error message with code ITDEXE2002 is encountered while logging in. Login related Not functional
23 DIN Numbers of Company Directors are not being auto populated in the new portal. Master data Partly functional
24 Newly incorporated companies or firms could not register themselves New user registration Partly functional
25 After generation of instant E-PAN, the same could not be downloaded. PAN Partly functional
26 The validity status of PAN not available PAN Partly functional
27 In the legacy portal a profile section as available wherein one could view Assesse’s details as per the PAN database. The same is now not visible in the new portal. PAN Not functional
28 The option for raising Refund re-issue requests is not available Refund Not functional
29 In filing of E-TDS, the only DSC mode of signing has been enabled. Other signing options based on Aadhar OTP, Net banking, etc. not enabled Signing Partly functional
30 The bank accounts were although pre-validated in the legacy portal, however in the new portal the same bank accounts are wrongly displayed as not prevalidated Signing Partly functional
31 The new portal is working at very Slow speed Speed Partly functional
32 Cannot successfully register the TAN TAN Partly functional
33 Neither the previously filed IT Returns nor their acknowledgements could be downloaded in PDF format. Transactional data access Partly functional
34 The ITR details related to AYs prior to 2013-14 could not be accessed and downloaded. These details would be required to deal with outstanding demands related to those years. The taxpayers do not normally keep records of ITR details related to such past years. As corollary the form 26AS can be generated from Traces portal even for AYs prior to 2013-14. Transactional data access Partly functional
35 Unable to file Form 10A along with relevant attachments as error of Invalid PDF is being encountered. Trust reregistration Not functional
36 The tab or option or the complete functionality of filing application under VSV Scheme not available VSV Scheme Not functional

TABLE SHOWING LIST OF SUGGESTIONS:

SL No Suggestion Category
1 The launch of new portal should be done in a phased manner after it has been thoroughly and exhaustively tested and all defects are removed.  The ideal time for launch of new portal should be on or after Jan 2022 next year after the current years compliances are completed by taxpayers on old IT portal… New IT Portal
2 Until the new system is completely ready and fully operational without any major defects, the old portal should be brought back for use by the taxpayers and tax professionals. Old IT Portal
3 Any process executed by the taxpayer and expected to run for few minutes before the output is produced, the system should provide a pop up message on the screen to keep the taxpayer informed about the same. Processing
4 After the launch of new IT portal the initial handholding in the form of providing user manuals, walk through videos, webinars, etc. be provided to the taxpayers for ensuring ease in transition to new portal. Training

Our Representations:

We implore upon your goods selves to kindly take cognizance of requests we have enumerated as below and kindly take necessary steps to resolve them to the best satisfaction of taxpayers and other stakeholders –

  1. The ‘e-Proceedings’ functionality is not yet operational in the new portal due to which the taxpayers could submit their timely response to various notices. Until new portal is properly functioning, necessary directions be given to the officers to follow the principles of natural justice and such officers to stop passing any adverse orders owing to non-receipt of timely responses from the taxpayers to notices.
  2. Provide relaxations by way of extensions as necessary in all specific compliance dates which would fall until the new portal starts functioning in a normal mode.
  3. The pandemic situation is still prevailing in several parts of the country and many taxpayers are under distress, the refunds that are due to the taxpayers may be processed in a manual mode until the new portal is up and running.
  4. There are multiple lacunas, issues in the functions of the new portal, there are few issue which are yet to be operational and stakeholders are left with no choice but to wait at threshold. A consolidation of list with date of operation would reduce the uncertainty amongst all the stakeholders.
  5. Allow important multiple stakeholders who can bring about the change in new portal by providing updates, expectation and bridge the issues. Going forward, any development of, or major modifications in any portal or software should consider feedback from its users on its efficiency and efficacy. In this context, we request you to consider involving independent and important stakeholders like KSCAA who can bring on to the table objective expectations of the stakeholders to the development team, especially when the system is being in its initial period of implementation. This would also streamline the multiple similar feedbacks received from numerous stakeholders that would eventually clog the feedback system/loop.
  6. Provide us an opportunity to participate and share our thoughts in the forthcoming interactive meeting scheduled for 22ndJune 2021.

We at KSCAA are confident that the various issues that are present and as discussed above in the newly developed portal would be taken up by your good selves on a war footing and that they would be resolved at the earliest of time to enable taxpayers to comply with law and perform tasks which are required. We at KSCAA are also sure that our representations enumerated as above would be given proper considerations by your good selves and would be accepted and approved for implementation.

Yours sincerely,

For Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association ®

Kumar S Jigajinni
President

  1. Pramod Srihari
    Secretary
  2. Ganesh V Shandage
    Chairman
    Representation Committee

Copy to –

  1. Shri. Anurag Thakur, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Finance, Government of India
  2. Shri. P. C. Gaddigoudar, Hon’ble MP, Bagalkot, Karnataka
  3. Shri. Tarun Bajaj, Revenue Secretary, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India
  4. Shri. J B Mohapatra, Chairman – Central Board of Direct Taxes
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