PremiumParekh will have to explain to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman why the glitches in the new income tax e-filing portal have not been resolved 2.5 months after its launch
Finance Ministry has summoned Infosys managing director and chief executive Salil Parekh over troubles with the new income tax e-filing portal. The website went live earlier this year, but has been marred by glitches since its launch.
Parekh has been called to appear before the Ministry of Finance on August 23, Monday, to explain to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman “as to why even after 2.5 months since launch of new e-filing portal, glitches in the portal have not been resolved," Income Tax Department said in a tweet on Sunday.
“In fact, since August 21, 2021 the portal itself is not available," the tax department added.
The new income tax e-filing portal was launched on June 7, with the motive to ease tax filing process and expedite refund issue. Infosys was given the contract to develop the website in January 2019. However, taxpayers faced numerous problems accessing and using the portal since the day of it launch.
Finance Ministry had called a meeting with Infosys officials on June 22 to discuss the glitches in the new income tax portal and garner suggestions from external shareholders to fix them. In the meeting, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) representatives highlighted the issues faced by taxpayers and tax professionals on the portal.
Earlier this week, FM Sitharaman had said that glitches are expected to be resolved in two-three weeks.
“The glitches on the new Income are expected to be fixed entirely in the next two-three weeks. I have been reminding Infosys constantly and Nandan Nilekani is giving me assurances that they will sort it out," she said.
Last month, during the Monsoon session, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary told Lok Sabha in a written reply that since January 2019 till June 2021, Infosys has been paid ₹164.5 crore to develop the portal.
In a different reply, Chaudhary said that Infosys has acknowledged the technical issues in the new income tax portal. Some of the initial glitches like slow functioning of the portal and non-availability of certain functionalities have been mitigated, he added.
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