Income Tax Portal Controversy
With the new Income Tax filing portal becoming completely inaccessible over the weekend, and yet to become fully functional 77 days after its launch
Income Tax Portal Controversy
With the new Income Tax filing portal becoming completely inaccessible over the weekend, and yet to become fully functional 77 days after its launch, a furious Finance Ministry summoned Infosys Managing Director and CEO Salil Parekh to explain the mess to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in person on August 23.
Important Points:
- Hours after the ‘summons’, the Income Tax portal became accessible again on August 22 evening. “The emergency maintenance of the @IncomeTaxIndia portal has concluded and the portal is live. We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers,” Infosys said.
- On AugusJust t 21 afternoon, Infosys said the I-T portal is ‘currently inaccessible due to planned maintenance’. On August 22, the company switched from the ‘planned maintenance’ argument to say that the portal ‘continues to be under emergency maintenance’.
- Since the portal started it has been under the radar as the taxpayers complain of glitches and its slow functioning.
- Between January 2019 to June 2021, the government has paid ₹164.5 crore to Infosys for developing the portal.
Why was the New Portal Launched?
- The Ministry had launched the ‘taxpayer friendly’ portal developed by Infosys on June 7, promising immediate processing of I-T returns to issue quick refunds to taxpayers, and a host of other features. But many critical functionalities were non-starters from Day One and problems continued to fester despite a claimed course correction.
- The new tax payment system will provide more payment methods such as Net banking, UPI, Credit card and RTGS/ NEFT.
- The new e-filing portal is aimed at providing convenience and a modern, seamless experience to taxpayers.
- The new portal, launched by the tax department, can be seen as a bid to compete with private income tax filing websites and also make it easier for taxpayers for filing their income tax return (ITR), checking TDS etc.
