Faceless e-Assessment for income tax payers launched
New Initiative shall impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process
Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey inaugurated National e-Assessment Scheme (NeAC) here today in the presence of CBDT Chairman P.C. Mody and Members P.K. Das, Akhilesh Ranjan and Prabhash Shankar.
While inaugurating the NeAC, Pandey said that it is matter of great pride and achievement for the Income Tax Department to bring NeAC to life in a small span of time. Retracing the origins of NeAC in 2017, Pandey lauded the IT Department for striving to achieve transparency with speed.
Pandey said that with the launch of National e-Assessment Centre (NeAC), the Income Tax Department will usher in a paradigm shift in its working by introducing faceless e-assessment to impart greater efficiency, transparency and accountability in the assessment process. He said that with NeAC, there would be no physical interface between the tax payers and the tax officers.
The setting up of NeAC of the Income Tax Department is a momentous step towards the larger objectives of better taxpayer service, reduction of taxpayer grievances in line with Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Digital India’ and promotion of Ease of Doing Business.
In the first phase, the Income Tax Department has selected 58,322 cases for scrutiny under the faceless e-Assessment Scheme 2019 and the e-notices have been served before 30th of September 2019 for the cases of Assessment Year 2018-19.
The taxpayers have been advised to check their registered e-filing accounts/ email ids and have been requested to furnish reply within 15 days. The Department hopes that with the ease of compliance for taxpayers, the cases would be disposed off expeditiously.
Benefits of Faceless Assessment:
- NeAC eliminates human interface between Assessing Officer and Assessee
- New System optimises the utilisation of resources through economies of scale
- NeAC introduces team based assessment with dynamic jurisdiction
- Ease of compliance for taxpayers
- Brings transparency and efficiency, thus improves quality of assessment and monitoring
- Functional specialisation as only one agency dealing with faceless assessment
- Expeditious disposal of cases
- Standardisation and quality management
