The Hindu Business Line : Online tax system from today

THE much talked about Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS), a new system for payment of direct taxes and monitoring of tax collections, would become operational from Tuesday.

Besides simplifying the procedures for the payment of taxes at the collecting branches of designated banks, the new system would also enable the income-tax department to monitor tax collections on a day-to-day basis. Under OLTAS, taxpayers would not be required to enclose challans with their tax returns.

All collecting branches of various banks have been networked and integrated with Tax Information Network (TIN) and Income Tax Department. The number of different types of challans has been reduced to three from seven.

An official release said that taxpayers would be required to fill a simplified single copy tax challan (instead of the four copies as at present) while paying tax at banks. The challans will be identifiable by a unique Challan Identification Number (CIN) as also the Permanent Account Number (PAN)/Tax Deduction Account Number (TAN). The new challan has a main copy and a counterfoil. The bank would stamp the main copy as well as the taxpayers' counterfoil with an acknowledgement stamp bearing a CIN, which comprises the seven digit recognition code of the bank branch (allotted by RBI), the date of deposit (DD-MM-YY) of challan and the serial number of the challan. The receipted counterfoil would be returned to the taxpayers.

Banks would enter the data from the main copy of the challan and transmit it online to the Department's TIN from which the data would be uploaded to the Department's National Computer Centre (NCC), New Delhi and the Regional Computer Centres. The transmission of data from banks to TIN will take place on T+2 basis instead of over 15 days as at present.

Taxpayers would not be required to enclose a copy of challan with their return. Instead, they would have to mention only the CIN on their returns. This would lead to effective dematerialization of challans. The department would verify claims for credit with the information available from TIN based on the unique CIN.

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