Even as the Modi Government last week sacked 15 senior Indian Revenue Service Officers serving in the IT Department, on charges of corruption, it decided to bring in further transparency by converting certain IT office units, led by Principal and Chief Income Tax commissioners, into dedicated e-assessment units.

E-assessment will drive the faceless assessment of taxes in which there will be minimal contact between IT officers and taxpayers, thereby reducing the chances of corruption. For the assessment year 2018-19, IT scrutiny notices under section 143(2) have been sent to tax assesses by software with zero intervention by humans.

Former finance minister Arun Jaitley had ideated faceless assessment.

Section 143(2) notice is issued under the IT Act when there are discrepancies in tax filings by assessees.

A dedicated national level e-assessment hierarchy is also being created within the IT Department, which will closely monitor all the faceless tax assessment, minimising interactions between Tax Officers and assessees and helping reduce corruption.

A senior IT officer told BusinessLine that several posts at the level of principal chief income commissioner and a few ranks lower have been identified. Their workload has been handed over to other department colleagues and they have been asked to immediately take over e-assessment work. Under e-assessment, a Mumbai-based company could get its tax assessed by an IT officer based out of Guwahati. Several pilot projects have already been implemented in the IT Department for addressing the teething trouble. In Mumbai city alone, four ranges, which in IT department parlance means units, have been shifted to e-assessment.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW