List of 36 issues and 4 suggestions on new IT portal: Representation from KARNATAKA STATE CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS ASSOCIATION

 

List of 36 issues and 4 suggestions on new IT portal: Representation from KARNATAKA STATE CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS ASSOCIATION

KARNATAKA STATE
CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS ASSOCIATION (R)

Date: 18^th June 2021

To,

Smt Nirmala Sitaraman

Honble Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Government of India, North Block ,New Delhi

Respected Madam,

SUBJECT: ISSUES IN THE NEW INCOME TAX E-FILING PORTAL

The Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association (R) (in short ‘KSCAA) is an Association of Chartered Accountants, registered under the Karnataka Societies Registration Act, in the year 1957. KSCAA is primarily form for the welfare of Chartered Accounts and represent before various regulatory authorities to resolve the problems / hardships faced by Chartered Accountants and business community.

We would like to convey our gratitude and congratulate you and your mini, for taking up the pro-a.ve, ambitious and forward looking step of development and launching of new Income . e-filing port. with the objective of realizing many functional improvements, and addition of new features in to the new e-filing port. which inter-alia includes faster processing of refunds to taxpayers, complete reduction of processing time of Income tax returns filed from current level of 63 days to almost 1 day, and to bring in many more better and improved functionalities. The new e-filing portal was expected to replace the existing e-filing portal, it was viewed to create a strong technology backbone by enabling host of new functionalities to the taxpayers including enhancement of look, feel and usage experience.

Despite the sincere, honest and best efforts of the team working behind in the development of this new portal it was disheartening to realize that this new portal is almost non-functional from the day of its launch on 7^th June 2021 and has witnessed many defects which completely disabled the taxpayers and other stakeholders from performing their legal compliances. The most fundamental and basic defect observed in case of many users which ideally should not have been there was that, the new portal did not even allow the users to login and enter inside their accounts on the portal, which was bizarre.

We at KSCAA have worked closely with multiple stakeholders to understand the issues at hand with respect new portal we have made efforts to consolidate the same and are enumerating the following issues and also few suggestions with respect to new e-filing portal (these issues are as on 17th of June 2021)

A. Table showing list of issues faced in new IT portal:

Sl. No	Issues	Category	Partly    or fully Not-functional
1	The field ‘Country’ in the Profile section is not available as a drop down option	Data entry	Not functional
2	Challan Numbers are not being validated	Data validation	Partly functional
3	BSR/Challan code which starts with first character ‘0’ is not being recognised & hence error of invalid input is being encountered.	Data validation	Partly functional
4	Response to outstanding demand  is though operational, the tax computation of demand amount could not be still downloaded.	Demands	Partly functional
5	As required by new portal, the existing DSC’s as registered under legacy portal could not be re- registered on the new portal	DSC	Partly functional
6	The Chartered Accountants could not add themselves as such and register their DSCs	DSC	Not functional
7	The tab or option ‘e-Proceedings’ is not available in _ complete form	e-Proceedings	Partly functional

 

Sl. No	Issues	Category	Partly    or fully Not-functional
8	The existing information and documents related to tax demands raised in legacy portal and are pending for payment by taxpayers could not be found in the new portal	e-Proceedings	Partly functional
9	The option of filling Form 35 for filing Appeal to CIT(A) not yet available	e-Proceedings	Not functional
10	The process of generating Form 15CA and 15CB could be only Partly executed but could not be completed till the end due to specific error messages are being encountered	Form 15CA/CB	Partly functional
11	The existing Grievances registered on the legacy portal along with trail of interactions on the same could not be found	Interaction data access	Partly functional
12	The trail of earlier replies given by taxpayers in response to departmental notices could not be found	Interaction data access	Partly functional
13	Income tax returns for AY 2021-22 could NOT be filed	ITR Filing	Partly functional
14	On selection of option  ‘Self in the Verification segment of ITR form, the taxpayers name disappears and eventually it ends up with validation errors	ITR Filing	Partly functional
15	Intimations generated for IT returns processed for AY 20-21 could not be accessed or downloaded	ITR Filing	Partly functional
16	Application could not be submitted for rectification of IT returns u/s 154	ITR Filing	Partly functional
17	Aadhar OTP not enabled for verification of ITR for AY 2021-22. Therefore ITR could not be filed.	ITR Filing	Partly functional
18	The Json files could not be uploaded for filing of ITR	ITR Filing	Partly functional
19	The pre-fill option while filing the IT returns is not automatically pulling in the TDS details.	ITR Filing	Partly functional
20	The ‘Forget password’ feature of the portal not operational	Login related	Partly functional
21	The login page does not require the taxpayer to enter Captcha code	Login related	Partly functional
22	In some cases an error message with code ITD- EXE2002 is encountered while logging in.	Login related	Not functional
23	DIN Numbers of Company Directors are not being auto populated in the new portal.	Master data	Partly functional
24	Newly incorporated companies or firms could not register themselves	New user registration	Partly functional

 

Sl. No	Issue	Category	Partly    or fully Not-functional
25	After generation of instant E-PAN, the same could not be downloaded.	PAN	Partly functional
26	The validity status of PAN not available	PAN	Partly functional
27	In the legacy portal a profile section as available wherein one could view Assesse’s details as per the PAN database. The same is now not visible in the new portal.	PAN	Not functional
28	The option for raising Refund re-issue requests is not available	Refund	Not functional
29	In filing of E-TDS. the only DSC mode of signing has been enabled. Other signing options based on Aadhar OTP, Net banking. etc. not enabled	Signing	Partly functional
30	The bank accounts were although pre-validated in the legacy portal. however in the new portal the same bank accounts are wrongly displayed as not pre-validated	Signing	Partly functional
31	The new portal is working at very Slow speed	Speed	Partly functional
32	Cannot successfully register the TAN	TAN	Partly functional
33	Neither the previously filed IT Returns nor their acknowledgements could be downloaded in PDF format.	Transactional data access	Partly functional
34	The ITR details related to AYs prior to 2013-14 could not be accessed and downloaded. These details would be required to deal with outstanding demands related to those years. The taxpayers do not normally keep records of ITR details related to such past years. As corollary the form 26AS can be generated from Traces portal even for AYs prior to 2013-14.	Transactional data access	Partly functional
35	Unable  to      file       Form       10A  along with  relevant attachments     as     error    of Invalid     PDF      is being encountered.	Trust re- registration	Not functional
36	The tab or option or the complete functionality of filing application under VSV Scheme not available	VSV Scheme	Not functional

 

B. Table showing list of suggestions:

Sl. No.	Suggestion	Category
1	The launch of new portal should be done in a phased manner after it has been thoroughly and exhaustively tested and all defects are removed. The ideal time for launch of new portal should be on or after Jan 2022 next year after the current years compliances are completed by taxpayers on old IT portal…	New IT Portal
2	Until the new system is completely ready and fully operational without any major defects, the old portal should be brought back for use by the taxpayers and tax professionals.	Old IT Portal
3	Any process executed by the taxpayer and expected to run for few minutes before the output is produced, the system should provide a pop up message on the screen to keep the taxpayer informed about the same.	Processing
4	After the launch of new IT portal the initial handholding in the form of providing user manuals, walk through videos, webinars, etc. be provided to the taxpayers for ensuring ease in transition to new _ portaL	Training

Our Representations:

1. We implore upon your goods selves to kindly take cognizance of requests we have enumerated as below and kindly take necessary steps to resolve them to the best satisfaction of taxpayers and other stakeholders – 1. The ^.e-Proceedings’ functionality is not yet operational in the new portal due to which the taxpayers could submit their timely response to various notices. Until new portal is properly functioning. necessary directions be given to the officers to follow the principles of natural justice and such officers to stop passing any adverse orders owing to non-receipt of timely responses from the taxpayers to notices

2. Provide relaxations by way of extensions as necessary in all specific compliance dates which would fall until the new portal starts functioning in a normal mode.

3. The pandemic situation is still prevailing in several parts of the country and many taxpayers are under distress, the refunds that are due to the taxpayers may be processed in a manual mode until the new portal is up and running.

4. There are multiple lacunas, issues in the functions of the new portal, there are few issue which are yet to be operational and stakeholders are left with no choice but to wait at threshold. A consolidation of list with date of operation would reduce the uncertainty amongst all the stakeholders.

5. Allow important multiple stakeholders who can bring about the change in new portal by providing updates, expectation and bridge the issues. Going forward. any development of, or major modifications in any portal or software should consider feedback from its users on its efficiency and efficacy. In this context, we request you to consider involving independent and important stakeholders like KSCAA who can bring on to the table objective expectations of the stakeholders to the development team, especially when the system is being in its initial period of implementation. This would also streamline the multiple similar feedbacks received from numerous stakeholders that would eventually dog the feedback system/loop.

6. Provide us an opportunity to participate and share our thoughts in the forthcoming interactive meeting scheduled for 22,une 2021.

We at KSCAA are confident that the various issues that are present and as discussed above in the newly developed portal would be taken up by your good selves on a war footing and that they would be resolved at the earliest of time to enable taxpayers to comply with law and perform tasks which are required. We at KSCAA are also sure that our representations enumerated as above would be given proper considerations by your good selves and would be accepted and approved for implementation.

Yours sincerely.

For Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association

CA. Kumar S Jigajinni    (President)                

CA. Pramod Srihari   (Secretary)                                      

CA. Ganesh V Shandage (Chairman Representation Committee)

Copy to –

1. Shri. Anurag Thakur, Montle Union Minister of State for Finance, Government of India
2. Shri. P. C. Gaddigoudar, Honible MP, Bagalkot. Karnataka
3. Shri. Tarim Bajaj. Revenue Secretary, Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India
4. Shri. J B Mohapatra, Chainnan – Central Board of Direct Taxes