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Mohan Padmanabhan

Kolkata , Sept. 12

PAN (Permanent Account Number), TIN (Tax Information Network) and now ERIIN (E-return Intermediary Identification Number).

The Income-Tax Department seems well on its way to fulfil the promise made to taxpayers in its Citizen's Charter some years go on e-filing of returns, which will help faster processing of returns and ensure quicker refunds.

The catch here is that the e-Return must be supported by a duly verified paper return of income, which according to tax consultants may render the whole scheme a meaningless exercise, as it would impose an additional burden on the taxpayer.

Furnishing of a physical return must be done away with altogether, say tax consultants. And to cap it all, the quintessential tax consultant, without whose help you cannot ever dream of filing an I-T return properly, has been conspicuously left out of the scheme and this has not gone down well with tax practitioners.

If you are a salaried individual with a PAN, and are sufficiently buttonholed in the Department's TIN, and, of course, computer savvy, the newly introduced Electronic Filing of Returns of Income Scheme 2003 is just for you. You simply need to have income under the head `salaries', and assessable to tax at Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

The department will work this scheme through an e-Return intermediary, generally a company, with the necessary software backup, and an e-Return Administrator, who will be an officer not below the rank of Commissioner of Income Tax, and designated as such by the Central Board of Direct Taxes to administer the e-filing scheme.

The administrator will issue an ERIIN and a password to each intermediary, which shall be valid for a particular financial year.

According to Mr Narayan Jain, tax advocate and consultant, if a taxpayer misses the deadline for filing returns under section 139 (1), and desires to file a belated return, he cannot do so under the e-filing scheme. He felt the so-called intermediary may not have the necessary expertise (knowledge of tax laws) to prepare a proper return of income, and this may result in further chaos.

The scheme should be extended to all categories of taxpayers, as this would broaden the scope of the scheme and make it truly assessee-friendly. Criticising the need to file paper returns additionally, he said the Government should at least create the facility so that payments towards LIC policies, PPF, NSC or infrastructure tax bonds for rebate under section 88 or TDS claims could easily be verified through a database of the collecting agency concerned. Once this is achieved, it may be possible to do away with paper returns and enclosures.

The six e-Return intermediaries named by the department are Indian Overseas Bank, HDFC Bank, Bharat Overseas Bank, ICICI Bank, UTI Bank and IDBI Bank.

The taxpayer will have to give his consent to any one of these intermediaries to act as his agent for the purpose of furnishing his e-Return, The intermediary, on receipt of the return, will digitise the data and transmit the same electronically to a server designated for this purpose by the administrator, on or before the due date. Mr Jain also felt that the intermediaries, who will be charging a fee for preparing the return, may not quite be up to the job, and would require outside help. Asked on this, an official of Bharat Overseas Bank here said the entire software for this has been developed by a Chennai-based company, Integrated Hitech, which will coordinate the entire exercise.

He said the assessee will, of course, have to be present physically at the intermediary's office to sign the returns, both online and paper return, and will be given an acknowledgment receipt for both.

Confirming that some e-Returns (scheme came into effect on July 25) have come in, he said the response in Delhi has reportedly been good. But according to the official at IOB, not a single return has come in yet. The HDFC Bank official here said they were expecting to go live by this weekend.

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