Prime Minister Modi declared that he is unveiling Faceless Appraisal, Faceless Appeal and Taxpayer Charter in his video conference on ‘Transparent taxation – Honoring the Honest.’ Although today’s Faceless Appraisal and the charter for taxpayers came into effect, the Faceless Appeal will be active from 25 September.
Under the government’s Faceless appeal framework, petitions are randomly assigned to any officer in the country and the identity of the officer who gets to decide the appeal will stay unknown. In addition, decisions are based on teams.
“Till now, all tax-related matters in a city are dealt by Income Tax department of that city, IT officers of that city play main role. Now on, using technology, scrutiny will be done by a randomly chosen IT officer anywhere in the country,” said PM.
The Faceless Appeal Program features:
Appeals to be randomly allotted to any officer in the country, the identification of the officers deciding appeal will remain unknown, the tax payer will not be required to visit the income tax office or the officer, the appellate decision will be team-bSaed and reviewed.
The Faceless Appeal exceptions include extreme crime, substantial tax avoidance, critical problems and search concerns. Global tax and Black Money Act and Benami land were excluded from the scheme too.
Throughout the video conference, Narendra Modi said that his goal is to render the ITR, smooth, painless and faceless filling program.
PM has called on people to pay their taxes and be responsible.
“Amidst all these efforts, the number of people filing income tax returns has increased by about two and a half crores in the last 6-7 years. But it is also true that in a country of 130 crores it is still very less,” said the Prime Minister.
“Out of all the tax returns in the year 2012-13, there was scrutiny of 0.94%. In the year 2018-19, this figure has come down to 0.26%. This indicates that the scrutiny of the case has reduced by almost 4 times,” PM added.
The faceless appeal will be in action from September the 25th, but a faceless evaluation will be carried out on Thursday and will not allow the taxpayers to attend an office or encounter any official and a taxpayers charter.
Before now the city of residence tax office has been managing an individual’s review, complaint and notifications. Currently, a central machine gathers tax returns for review using risk criteria and anomalies and then randomly assigns them to a team of agents in every area. Authorities in another designated area may evaluate the investigation of such police.
Three main features of the platform unveiled on Thursday are faceless assessment, faceless appeal, and taxpayers’ charter, he said adding the focus is on making the tax system “people-centric and public friendly.”
To order to make enforcement easier for private citizens, the income tax department streamlined the guidelines for start-ups and has gone forward with pre-filling income tax returns. Most of the Income Tax Department tasks are actually conducted remotely and without human intervention from the filing of the document, retour collection, refund issuance and assessment.
Launching the ‘Transparent Taxation – Honouring The Honest Platform’ through video conferencing, he said the taxpayer base at just 1.5 crore in India is very low and urged those who owe taxes to come forward and honestly pay their dues and contribute to nation-building. “The tax system may be turning faceless but it promises fairness and fearlessness for taxpayers,” he said . Modi said this will end the era of “jaan pehchan” (acquaintance) to get scrutiny or notices settled.
The Prime Minister said that the charter of taxpayers guarantees equal, pleasant and rational care, thus respecting taxpayers as truthful. Government wants people to be fair and to pay taxes in due time. While the number of people filing income tax returns has increased by about 2.5 crore in the past few years, actual taxpayers at just 1.5 crore out of a population of 130 crore “is very very less,” he said
“Those who are capable must voluntarily come forward and pay their dues and contribute to the development of the nation,” he said. Modi said, economic reforms in the past were done under compulsions or pressure which did not yield desired results. “For us reforms mean reforms based on policy, reforms that are holistic and not piecemeal and one reform forming the base for other,” he said. “Reform is a continuous process.”
Reacting to the announcement, Anshuman Magazine, Chairman & CEO – India, South East Asia, Middle East & Africa, CBRE, said, “The launch of a transparent taxation platform by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a positive step by the government to strengthen our economy. This further simplified platform will make the process of paying the tax and filing for the return easier and more transparent. This will also ensure that more people join the taxation process willingly and contribute their bit towards nation building. Government’s commitment towards easing compliances through extension of statutory timeliness for filing returns and releasing refunds has already uplifted the taxpayers’ sentiment in the past. The new tax regime will also bring the confidence of investors back into the system and we hope that it will play a crucial role in bringing the economy back on its path to recovery.”
