Income Tax Portal Still Remains the Worst Nightmare for CAs; But for Govt, ‘All is Well’

While the Union government says nearly 5.89 crore income tax returns (ITRs) have been filed on the new e-filing portal as on 31 December 2021, the website, developed and maintained by Infosys Ltd, continues to frustrate taxpayers and chartered accounts (CAs) from across the country. Many CAs contend that their plea, which was rejected by the ministry of finance, was not for an extension of the last date for e-filing of returns but had sought instead a remedy to the problematic e-filing portal. Many of them are venting out their frustration on social media.

 

In a hard-hitting letter last month to the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Surat-based Chartered Accountants Association, says, “...if the contract was awarded in January 2019, then even after the passing of 36 months, the front end of the new portal shows a brainless design with various missing drop-down menus, buttons and missing notifications, the backend database frequently loses data of various forms filed by the stakeholders, the migrated data of digital signatures is totally lost after which stakeholders took enormous pains to replenish the database with digital signature mappings again and the overall website developed is pathetic and hapless.”

 

“During these three years, the I-T department and the hired agency has not taken the task of development seriously and has instead developed a portal of a quality which can be developed even by college students in their summer projects. This shows either a severe cost-cutting at the agency’s end in the development and implementation part OR a flawed requirement with wavering mindset provided by the I-T officials to the development agency,” the letter says.

 

 

Till date, the ministry has given numerous extensions to Infosys to resolve the issues being faced by taxpayers and CAs. In fact, in August 2021, FM Sitharaman had even summoned the Infosys managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO), Salil Parekh over continuing glitches on the new I-T e-filing portal.

 

Even in July last year, the finance minister had tagged Infosys, which is managing the new portal and the company’s co-founder Nandan Nilekani, urging them to ensure that the new I-T e-filing portal does not let taxpayers down. She had requested them to fix glitches in the new I-T e-filing website urgently and had appealed that easing compliance for taxpayers at the earliest should be prioritised.