PremiumSenior officials from the Finance Ministry will hold an interactive meeting next week on glitches and issues hounding the new income tax e-filing portal with Infosys, the developer behind the portal. The meeting is scheduled to take place on June 22 from 11 AM to 1 PM.
Other stakeholders, including ICAI members, auditors, consultants and taxpayers will also participate in the meeting, a statement from Finance Ministry said.
"The new portal has been fraught with several technical glitches/issues leading to taxpayer inconvenience. Written representations on the problems/difficulties faced in the portal have also been invited from the stakeholders," the ministry said.
Meant to ease the process of filing income tax and receiving tax refunds, taxpayers have mostly found glitches and technical hiccups on the portal. Since its launch on June 7, taxpayers have been complaining about difficulties like inability to access the new portal. Even if some do manage to log in, they find it difficult to carry out transactions or respond to tax notices.
A day after the portal's launch last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had posted a tweet directed at Infosys and co-founder, urging them not to "let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided".
"The much awaited e-filing portal 2.0 was launched last night 20:45hrs. I see in my TL [timeline] grievances and glitches. Hope @Infosys & @NandanNilekani will not let down our taxpayers in the quality of service being provided. Ease in compliance for the taxpayer should be our priority," Sitharaman’s posted from her personal handle. This tweet was later was retweeted by the Income Tax Department.
Responding to the Finance Minister's tweet, Nilekani stated that Infosys regrets the troubles and expects the system to stabilise within a week.
"The new e-filing portal will ease the filing process and enhance end user experience. @nsitharaman ji, we have observed some technical issues on day one, and are working to resolve them. @Infosys regrets these initial glitches and expects the system to stabilise during the week," Nilekani tweeted.
On Monday, Finance Ministry relaxed mandatory online filing of Form 15 CA and Form 15 CB for foreign remittances, allowing manual their filing till June 30 due to the glitches in the new tax filing portal. A facility will be provided on the new e-filing portal to upload these forms at a later date in order to generate the Document Identification Number, the ministry added.
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