With increasing use of online and IT systems by the tax authorities, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that an external audit should be done to review how this has lowered physical interface with taxpayers and improved compliance.

“For both direct and indirect taxes, we must get an external audit done to see how much interface has decreased and the areas where further interface can be reduced,” he said at the launch of a new service for income tax queries and payments.

Lauding efforts by the Tax Department to cut down physical interface with assessees, the Finance Minister said that this has unintended consequences.

“More interface can be time consuming and lead to a lot of improprieties,” he said.

Further more people will be encouraged to pay taxes if they are not worried about harassment by tax officials.

Aaykar Setu app

The Central Board of Direct taxes has launched a new tax payer service module called ‘Aaykar Setu’, which can also be accessed through a mobile app.

“The module compiles various tax tools, live chat facility, dynamic updates, and important links to various processes within the Income-Tax Department in a single module,” said an official release.

Tax payers will also receive regular updates regarding important tax dates, forms and notifications on mobile numbers registered with the Income-Tax Department through the service, it said.

Similarly, on the indirect tax front, taxpayers now have to use the online portal for goods and services tax to file returns and pay taxes.

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