Income Tax Budget 2024 Live: Ease of filing income tax returns for taxpayers

“The newly elected government has actively utilized technology to implement taxpayer-friendly measures such as online e-filing portal, TDS portal (TRACES), faceless assessments and an online grievance mechanism. While this shift towards digital transformation is encouraging, the government must ensure that there is smooth progress while using these technology platforms as the taxpayer base continues to grow. For example, with just 14 days remaining to file tax returns, issues such as portal freezing, frequent logins, delays in form display, inefficient preview tabs, temporary edit function disablements, navigating delays between pages, and the need to save data repeatedly highlight areas where technological improvements are necessary.

The Government should further strengthen the internal technology support to address these challenges. Also, few tax return forms are required to be generated online through TRACES by individual taxpayers like Form 16B which takes a few days post submission of online details. The aim should be to reduce this turnover time as far as possible through efficient use of technology.

Further, online filing of submissions in case of scrutiny assessment or appeals requires uploading a lot of documents on the e-filing portal. While this online option saves taxpayers time, issues such as file size limitations, restriction on number of attachments, limited accepted document formats (PDF, JPG, etc.), requires the Government’s attention to make faceless proceedings more successful,” says Chander Talreja, Partner, Vialto Partners.