With a view to reducing human interactions in the income tax proceedings, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified the Centralized Verification Scheme, 2019.
As per the scheme, the Department can issue a notice to any person requiring him to furnish information or documents for the purposes of verification of the information or documents through e-mail or SMS.
The notice shall be issued under the digital signature of the Designated Authority. The assessee shall respond to the notice within the stipulated time period. The response shall be furnished in a machine-readable format.
The scheme mandates that no person shall be required to appear personally or through authorized representative before the Designated Authority at the Centre in connection with any proceedings.
The Principal Director General of Income-tax (Systems) or Director General of Income-tax (Systems) shall have the power to prescribe norms for matters in connection with, (a) format and procedure for issuance of the notice; (b) receipt of any information or document from the person in response to the notice; (c) mode and formats for issue of acknowledgment of the response furnished by the person; (d) provision of web portal facility including login facility, tracking status of verification, display of relevant details, and facility of download; (e) accessing, processing and verification of information and response including documents submitted during the verification process; (f) format and data structure for making available the outcome of verification to the Assessing Officer; (g) call centre to answer queries and provide support services, including outbound calls and inbound calls seeking information or clarification; (h) receipt, scanning, data entry, storage and retrieval of information or documents in a centralised manner; (i) grievance redressal mechanism in the Centre.
Introduction of the new system handling e-assessment by two officers will ease the conduct of task and which would increase the efficiency of return filing. Till now, only one AO is responsible for a case under assessment.
The move aims to curb corruption in the department along with harassment faced by the assessees. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative. Under the new assessment procedure, neither the assessee nor the tax officer would know the other’s identity.
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