Due to portal glitches, manual filing of tax forms for foreign remittances allowed

With the new tax filing portal, which was launched on June 7, facing glitches, the I-T dept issued a circular allowing manual filing of Form 15CA/15CB (required for foreign remittances) with banks.
Income tax
Income tax
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The Income Tax department on June 14, Monday, allowed the manual filing of certain forms after the new tax filing portal continued to face tech glitches a week after its launch. The I-T department issued a circular allowing manual filing of Form 15CA/15CB (required for foreign remittances) with banks till June 30, so that business transactions may go on.

The forms will be uploaded online on the e-filing portal later, it added. The new portal, www.incometax.gov.in, was launched on June 7, with the tax department, as well as the government, saying it was aimed at making compliance more taxpayer-friendly.

But users complained of technical issues from the very first day and not everything has been fixed even after a week, many chartered accountants (CAs) said. Adding that taxpayers are unable to view past e-filed returns and many features/ facilities continue to be marked 'coming soon'.

In a statement, the Income Tax department said, "In view of the difficulties reported by taxpayers in electronic filing of Income Tax Forms 15CA/15CB on the portal www.incometax.gov.in, it has been decided that taxpayers can submit the aforesaid Forms in manual format to the authorised dealers till June 30, 2021."

The I-T department also advised authorised dealers to accept such forms till June 30, 2021 for the purpose of foreign remittances.

"A facility will be provided on the new e-filing portal to upload these forms at a later date for the purpose of generation of the Document Identification Number," the statement added.

Any person who needs to make a foreign outward remittance needs to file an online form/ declaration in Form 15CA specifying the nature of the transaction and the amount of income tax deducted on such foreign remittance.

In certain cases, this Form 15CA is also backed by a chartered accountant's certificate in Form 15CB, which certifies that appropriate income tax has been deducted on such remittance. Such forms (15CA and 15CB) are required to be filled online using the income tax e-filing portal.

Nangia & Co LLP Partner Shailesh Kumar said due to the shutdown of the old e-filing portal post-May 31, 2021 and technical snags being faced with the new portal, filing of online Forms 15CA and 15CB have not been possible till now.

"This had created a significant hardship for businesses, which required payment to be made outside India, for placing the orders or for obtaining licenses or meeting their commercial obligations. However, banks were not permitting foreign remittance, for want of Form 15CA/15CB. This practical problem had brought many business transactions to a standstill," Kumar said.

Realising the hardships of businesses, the government has issued this circular allowing manual filing of Form 15CA/15CB with banks till June 30, so that business transactions may go on despite the technical snags in the new e-filing portal, he added.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had asked Infosys– the vendor which created the portal– and its Chairman Nandan Nilekani to fix the technical glitches.

Users flag tech glitches

A day after the launch of the portal, social media users had flagged glitches in the new e-filing website to the Finance Minister. Following that, She took to Twitter and asked Infosys and its chairman to fix the problem. Replying to the tweet, Nilekani had said Infosys is working to fix the glitches.

Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds.

Kumar said starting from the struggle to log in to the portal to important features such 'e-proceedings' tabs being unavailable with a message displayed 'coming soon', there is anxiousness among the taxpayers and tax professionals with respect to orders being passed and non-compliance of notices without getting a sufficient opportunity to present a case.

"The taxpayers could face penalty consequences for reasons beyond their control. Also, taxpayers are facing a major challenge for remitting funds abroad as they are unable to issue Form 15CA/ CB. Even after one week of going live, the aforesaid are not minor glitches and require immediate attention/ resolution," Kumar said.

Issues while using new income tax portal

AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said the common issues frequently faced on the portal since last week include login taking 10-15 minutes, inability to file responses to the assessment notices, data related to past filings not being visible on the portal and e-proceedings module not being fully functional.

"New income tax portal needs to be fixed at the earliest; numerous errors and glitches are causing inconvenience for the taxpayers and tax professionals," Mohan added.

Deloitte India Partner Aarti Raote said the new tax portal has raised expectations from all. However, many who accessed the site felt it was slow and several existing features were also not accessible.

"Users were faced with access and login challenges. The tax department has also indicated that the Digital Signature would need to be re-registered on account of security reasons. Thus benefits of the new portal would be seen when these initial glitches are addressed," Raote said.

Dhruva Advisors LLP Partner Sandeep Bhalla said the classification interface of the new website seems to be user-friendly with user manuals for each type of user, but the site itself is pretty slow and takes quite some time for small things like updating of profile.

"A basic thing such as changing a password could take several minutes. The various forms required to be filed for lower withholding applications... are difficult to find. The data of earlier rectifications etc. filed on the earlier e-portal does not reflect and throws up error messages," Bhalla added.

Bhalla wondered about the timing for the new launch when the advance tax timing was round the corner and the deadline for completion of assessments is at the end of the month, which has been extended multiple times due to the pandemic.

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