Income Tax Department launches faceless e- Assessment scheme

The Income Tax department launched the faceless e-Assessment scheme which aims to facilitate faceless assessment of income tax returns through completely electronic communication.

In this context:

• Under this scheme, taxpayers will receive notices on their registered e-mails as well as on registered accounts on the web portal with real-time alert by way of SMS.
• The Income-tax department has picked up 58,000 cases for the faceless e-Assessment scheme.
• The replies to the notices can be sent directly to the National e-Assessment Centre by uploading the same on the designated web portal.

Significance of this move:

• This scheme involves no human interface between the taxpayer and the department.
• This will increase ease of compliance for taxpayers as the cost and anxiety of taxpayers are likely to be greatly reduced.
• It will bring transparency and efficiency by improves the quality of assessment and monitoring.
• Expeditiously disposal of cases will be done.

National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC)

This institution has been set up for looking after the e-assessment scheme. It?s headquartered in Delhi and will be headed by Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax.

There are 8 Regional e-Assessment Centres (ReAC) set up at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata Ahmedabad, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad which would comprise Assessment unit, Review unit, Technical unit and Verification units.