New Portal of Income Tax E-Filing| Detailed Explanation

A new e-filing portal has been launched by the Income Tax Department on June 7, 2021. This new income tax e-filing portal was launched in order to simplify the process of ITR filing and to make it hassle free. The new income tax e-filing portal was an initiative by the CBDT(Central Board of Direct Taxes) in order to avail easy compliance to its stakeholders and taxpayers. This new income tax e-filing portal is much more advantageous and aims at making the process of ITR filing fully seamless and easier. In this blog, we will discuss in detail the new income tax e-filing portal, its benefits and features.

The purpose of e-filing 2.0

The new income tax e-filing portal also referred to as the e-filing 2.0 portal is the new official portal of the IT department, Ministry of Finance and Indian Government. The new income tax e-filing portal was developed under the National E-governance  Plan as a Mission Mode Project. The main purpose of the new income tax e-filing portal was to avail a single-window access to all the stakeholders and taxpayers for all the income-tax related services.

Offered Services

The various services that are offered to taxpayers and stakeholders by the new income tax e-filing portal are listed below:

1. E-Verify Return: Verification of ITRs without logging in to the portal
2. Link Aadhaar: In order to e-file return, the taxpayer should link his Aadhaar to his PAN
3. E-Pay Tax: Pay all the taxes that are pending online
4. ITR Status: the status of the e-filed ITR can be tracked
5. Verification of PAN: Be sure that all the details of your PAN are correct
6. Know TAN: Get information about the Tax deductors across the country
7. Information of Tax and Services: Get information about the Tax Services
8. Order notice Authentication: Know if the received notice is authentic or  not
9. Know your AO: Get to know your Assessing Officer
10. Instant E-PAN: Apply online for New PAn or update its details or check PAN status
11. TDS on Withdrawal of Cash: The TDS is deducted on withdrawal of cash under Section 194N
12. Verification of Service request: You can verify your service request that is initiated by the ERI in your place.

The Benefits of the New Income Tax e-Filing Portal

As discussed above, the new income tax e-filing portal has a lot of benefits and makes the ITR filing process quite convenient for its taxpayers as follows:

1. The new income tax e-filing portal provides free ITR preparation software for ITR-1,4(Online and offline forms) and ITR-2(Online form).
2. The new income tax e-filing portal has been merged with IT processing which allows users to get a quick refund and is easy to use and user-friendly.
3. The new income tax e-filing portal also provides assistance to taxpayers in order to file forms related to income tax, to submit responses of different scrutinies and add tax professionals and more.
4. All the taxpayers will be provided a single dashboard on the new income tax e-filing portal in order to provide assistance to the taxpayer with a multitude of uploads and interactions.
5. A new call-centre is going to be established by the IT department in order to help the taxpayers and make the process of paying taxes easy and hassle-free.
6. The taxpayers will be able to update the professional details and other related information on the new income tax e-filing portal.

Important features of the New Income Tax e-Filing Portal

1.  The new income tax e-filing portal will have detailed FAQs , chatbox and videos and live agents to assist taxpayers to understand the new portal’s features.
2. The new income tax e-filing portal will also have a reminder about required compliances which will help the taxpayer in completing the pending filings.
3. The taxpayers will now get the facility to pre-fill their salaried income, interest, and dividends and all the capital gains  will get reflected after the deductions of TDS and SFT.
4. The new income tax e-filing portal will also have a new system of online tax payment with numerous options like credit card, UPI, NEFT, RTGS and net banking to make easy tax payments.
5. A new mobile application will be launched afterwards which will assist the taxpayers to understand the new portal.

The Grievances Cell

As discussed above, a single-window has been developed in order to raise grievances via the new income tax e-filing portal. This single window will also enable the taxpayers to inquire about any concerns that arise during the process of filing or after the filing.

e-Preceding

E-preceding is a platform for the conduction of proceedings in an end-to-end manner in an electronic manner. All the letters, intimations and notices that are provided by the department have been made available under the e-proceedings and the and the assessee will be able to submit and view responses in addition to attachments by uploading them on the new income tax e-filing portal. This helps in a safe storage and a way of tracking all the e-submissions that are made by the taxpayer and hence, makes it possible for the whole process to be paperless.

E-filing process online

The online process of e-filing ITR-1 and ITR-4 on the new income tax e-filing portal is given below:

• The taxpayer will have to visit the new income tax e-filing portal and select the e-file option to file an ITR.
• Then, the taxpayer will have to choose the assessment year , the type of ITR, the mode of submission and the filing type.
• Select the status option. Continue if you have confirmed the type of ITR.
• Choose the reason for filing the ITR and fill the applicable fields.
• The e-filing of the ITR will be done once you receive the EVC or the OTP for ITR verification.

E-Filing Process Offline

• Visit downloads and choose the ITR and download utility
• Provide all the details in the required fields in the ITR utility and create a JSON file
• Log in to the e-filing portal and select income tax returns in the e-file option
• Once you have selected the assessment year, the type of filing, the type of ITR, the mode of submission, upload the JSON file that you generated. Also give the EVC or OTP in order to e-verify the ITR.

ITR E-Verification

Once the submission of the ITR has been done, the next important thing is the verification of the same in order to complete the process. The e-verification is one of the easiest ways to verify your ITR. It helps in saving the effort to send ITR-V to CPC, Bangalore.

E-Filing Vault

In order to protect the e-filing account of the taxpayer against any sort of fraudulent activity or illegal access, the e-filing vault provides a second level authentication facility to ensure a higher degree of security. The following options provide higher security facility for e-filing login and password reset:

1. Net Banking
2. Aadhaar OTP
3. Digital Signature
4. Certificate(DSC)
5. Bank Account EVC
6. Demat Account EVC

Conclusion

In this blog, we came across the new income tax e-filing portal. We also learnt about the objectives and services of the new income tax e-filing portal. Various features and benefits of the new income tax e-filing portal were also discussed above along with the online and offline e-filing process and the ITR e-verification and the use of E-Filing vault.