New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday unveiled faceless tax scrutiny and appeal and urged people to pay their due taxes and contribute to nation building.
Also the Income Tax department will adopt a 'taxpayer charter' which outlines rights and responsibilities of both tax officers and taxpayers.
"The platform has major reforms like faceless assessment, faceless appeal and taxpayers charter. Faceless assessment and taxpayers charter has come into force from today. The facility of faceless appeal will be available for citizens from September 25 on the birth anniversary of Pt Deen Dayal Upadhaya," PM Modi added.
"The emphasis is on making every rule-law, policy people-centric, and public friendly. This is the use of the new governance model and the country is getting its results," he said while speaking at the event.
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Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the initiative is a landmark in the history of tax administration. "The Prime Minister'svision is to empower taxpayers, to provide a transparent system and to honour the honest taxpayer. To realise this vision, CBDT has given a framework and put in a place a system in the form of this platform," she said.
"A transparent, efficient and accountable tax administration is what this platform brings it. It uses technology, data analytic and also uses artificial intelligence. It eases compliance burden, brings fair, objective and just system," the Minister added.
Key takeaways from PM Modi's speech
- Modi emphasised the role of tax compliance in nation-building and said the government is following a policy-driven governance model
- The Prime Minister said that the new tax system is going to become faceless and this will give a belief of fairness and fearlessness to taxpayers
- In the last 6 years, our focus was banking the unbank, securing the unsecured, funding the unfunded," said Modi
- New facilities beginning from today establishes our commitment to minimum government and maximum governance, said Modi
- Our aim is to create a seamless, painless and faceless tax administration system. The emphasis is on making every rule-law, policy people-centric and public friendly
- The faceless system, the tax administration will be randomly assigned by a computer. If a taxpayer is based in Mumbai then his assessment may be done by some tax officials in Chennai, Guwahati, Raipur or some other place
- The appeal against the faceless order will also be conducted in a faceless manner. The appellate authority will also be selected by a computer programme which will be updated and amended regularly. It will end the transfer-posting lobbying in the tax department
- Very few countries in the world have implemented a Charter for Taxpayer which will usher in a new era of reform of tax administration in the country. The department will not be able to harass a taxpayer. The Taxpayer's Charter not only has rights of taxpayers but it also lists out their duties and responsibilities
- It is the responsibility of the government to judiciously use every single penny collected from taxpayers
- The incidence of scrutiny of tax returns has come down to just one fourth in the last few years, in 2012-13 0.94% of all returns were subjected to scrutiny which has come down to 0.26% in 2018-19
- The number of income tax filers has gone up by 2.5 crore in the last 6-7 years. It's a huge increase but it's minuscule in a country with the population of 1.3 billion people as only 1.5 crore people in the country pay income tax
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people, including the business community to self reflect, if they are capable to pay income tax but somehow are outside the tax net, then they should come forward and pay taxes
- Prime Minister also congratulated income tax officers for curtailing their own power through this efficient and transparent tax administration system.
(With inputs from agencies)
