It’s fast, convenient and accurate— all the reasons for efiling to be a hit with taxpayers. The figures touted by the Income Tax Department seem to suggest this too: 16.65% of the total returns filed in 2008-9 were e-returns, a 100% jump from the previous year. So, when we took an office poll, we expected some people to have filed their taxes online. But no hands went up.
Frankly, despite the huge surge in the number of e-returns, 16.65% isn’t too high on the popularity meter. Some blame it on the low penetration level of computers, others point to the lackadaisical promotion of the benefits of online filing. These arguments don’t hold for informed office-goers.
The click-by-click guide |
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| Based on the four popular portals on the Net, we tell you the different stages of submitting an e-return. If the site does not get jammed, you should be a happy taxpayer in just a few hours. |
| 1. Choose the e-filing package. (Depends on the ITR and the services you want, such as expert review.) |
| 2. Register by creating a user ID. |
| 3. Follow the steps by keying in the required information. (The portal will prompt you on where to get the information.) |
| 4. A) Review return, pay charges and click on e-file. Or, save return offline and upload on the IT Dept. Website. B) Add digital signature. (If you have a digital signature, make sure the portal has the facility of uploading it.) |
| 5. A) Take a printout of the ITR-V and fill the details (if you have used the IT Dept. Website). Make sure that you sign the ITR-V. B) Take a printout of the ITR-V with the digital signature. Your return has been submitted. |
| 6. Post the ITR-V to the following address: IT Department, CPC, Post Box No-1, Electronic City Post Office, Bengaluru-560100, Karnataka. |
| 7. Make sure that you get an acknowledgement of the return from the IT office after sending the ITR-V. This, and not the ITR-V, proves that your return has been submitted successfully. |
Check with your neighbours and friends and you will discover that the majority of them have not filed their returns online. The successful tax filing portals can claim high volumes largely due to corporate tie-ups and not because individuals sign up with them. Clearly, even among the aware who have access to the Net, the online route is not preferred. Why?
For most people, the assurance of the tried and tested method is too big an attraction. Twenty-two-year-old Nivedita Talukdar, who works for an airline, sees no reason to change the way her taxes are filed—by supplying the information to her chartered accountant, who then provides an end-to-end solution, up to filing the return.
Others are intimidated by the idea of doing it themselves. “Even if I put in the correct data, I will not be as confident as when my consultant files the return,” says 29-year-old Nitin Chugh, a Delhi-based engineer.
Many taxpayers are put off by the rumours that chances of scrutiny of e-returns are higher. Shishir Jha, commissioner of IT and spokesperson of CBDT, clarifies: “Due to the in-built validation procedures, the chances of mistakes in an e-return are very low, which reduces the risk of getting a notice.”
Another reason is the misconception that digital signatures are essential for online filing. This is not true. Till last year, if you did not have a digital signature, you could file the tax online and submit the acknowledgement receipt called the ITR-V at the local tax office.
The process is different this time. You still don’t need a digital signature, but instead of submitting the ITR-V to the local tax office, you must mail it to the IT Department’s Bengaluru office within 30 days of filing the return electronically. Use the Indian postal service and make sure that the envelope is not folded.
On the face of it, this is an anachronistic change, a return to snail mail, but experts welcome it as taxpayers can now file their return from anywhere across the world. But what if the ITR-V is lost due to the irresponsibility of the postal department? Jha advises: “Taxpayers must check whether they have received the acknowledgment from the department. They must also keep a copy of the postal receipt.” Though this will prove that you had sent the acknowledgement before the deadline, it hardly saves you the hassle of repeating the process, if required.
Ankur Sharma, director of Taxspanner.com, lists a practical benefit of the new rule: “Mailing the acknowledgement will check corruption as some assessing officers demand a couple of hundred rupees just to submit the return.” He believes that the current process is here to stay as digital signatures may be phased out due to their limited utility and the cumbersome process of getting them.
Ketan Raiyani, MD, Taxsmile.com, sums up the verdict, “E-filing is convenient for both the taxpayer and the IT Department.” Not all taxpayers agree, so MONEY TODAY decided to check whether the service of the tax-filing portals is to blame. We chose four Websites: taxsmile.com, taxspanner.com, paisawaisa.com and taxshax.com. We tried to fill the ITR-2 form using these sites in order to identify the problems (if any).
It was immediately clear why an ordinary person gets intimidated: there are just too many details to be filled. No wonder that the Chughs and the Talukdars prefer to pay a tax consultant rather than wade through numerous facts and figures. However, this is not the fault of the portals, but is a requirement for filing the return. On their part, the Websites try hard to put you at ease—there are tips on where to find information in the Form 16 and some like taxshax.com give mouse-over explanations for entries.
For prompts, warnings and tax calculation, full marks to all the portals. In terms of user interface, taxpsanner. com scores because the screen never clutters with information till you review the ITR. While a couple of portals prompt you if the PAN is not in the correct format, only the government Website tells you whether the PAN corresponds to the assessee’s name. Taxspanner.com gains more points as it offers the service of getting an expert to review your ITR. Similarly, taxshax.com answers any query within an hour of sending them a mail.
The portals’ fees can be paid through credit card or a Net banking account, neither of which is more tedious than say, paying your mobile bill online. However, the tax department may take a while to generate the ITR-V. It gets worse as you approach the deadline. The head of a tax filing portal, who did not want to be identified, claimed that the time taken for getting the acknowledgement “made my users paranoid”. The only way to avoid it: file the return well in advance.
The only hiccup in e-filing was that we couldn’t complete the process in the first attempt due to inadequate documents at hand. This isn’t really a problem if you consider that you are forced to sift through all the relevant documents and get a bird’s eye-view of your investments. Our verdict: a definite thumbs up. Forget what others say, get out of your comfort zone and file taxes online. It may take the better part of your weekend, but it’s simple and teaches you more than just tax.
