In a major step aimed at easing taxpayer grievances, CBDT on Friday announced that assessees filing I-T returns online will no longer have to send the paper acknowledgement by post as a new Aadhaar-based electronic verification code has been launched to authenticate this document.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy making body of the I-T department, has introduced a new column in the ITRs for 2015-16 where an e-filer can provide his Aadhaar number which will have to be authenticated on the official website of the department via a One Time Password (OTP).
“A new EVC, ie. Electronic Verification Code, has been included as the new mode to verify e-returns. The facility will soon be hosted on the website of the e-filing link of the department. The taxpayers no longer need to send the ITR-V paper document to the CPC in Bengaluru, thus ending the cumbersome process which was robbing the e-filing of its ease and fun,” a senior I-T officer told PTI.
The procees, as explained by the officer, will require the e-filer to register his Aadhaar number in the ITR after which the UIDAI database will send an OTP to the registered mobile number of the taxpayer which subsequently will have to be authenticated on the e-filing website.
The I-T Systems Directorate, the officer said, is also in the process of validating net banking identity as the verifier of e-filed I-T returns “very soon.”
The I-T department, through CBDT, had recently decided to completely do away with the “cumbersome” procedure undertaken currently by a taxpayer to send his or her ITR-V (Verification) form to the department’s Central Processing Centre (CPC) based in Bengaluru through post.
A number of taxpayers have earlier complained to the department that despite sending the hard copy of ITR-V by “speed or registered post” their forms were being acknowledged by CPC as “not received” and hence the department has since long been looking at options to do away with this system altogether.
As per existing rules, a person who files his or her tax return online has to send a copy of the ITR-V to CPC within 120 days for processing of the return.
CBDT had in October last year amended the provisions of the I-T Act and made it easy for the department to undertake these new methods for “validation” of e-returns.
The new measure will ease the process of quick generation of refunds of taxpayers.
Cracking the whip on 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) for ad-hoc appointments, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the termination of Chairpersons of these regulatory authorities. The concerned states are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur. The order was given last week by the principal bench of the NGT, chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar. The recent order of June 8, 2017, comes as a follow-up to an NGT judgment given in August 2016. In that judgment, the NGT had issued directions on appointments of Chairmen and Member Secretaries of the SPCBs, emphasising on crucial roles they have in pollution control and abatement. It then specified required qualifications as well as tenure of the authorities. States were required to act on the orders within three months and frame Rules for appointment [See Box: Highlights of the NGT judgment of 2016 on criteria for SPCB chairperson appointment]. Having
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