As one month passed after the finance ministry updated the website for e-filing the income tax returns, users still find it difficult to use.
Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State, Finance, told Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that issues like “slowness of the portal and non-availability of certain functionalities” are “mitigated.” However, users challenge the claims of the minister.
“I tried to file the returns till 4 pm on Tuesday. The website kept showing ‘loading’ for a very long time,” a user from Kozhikode told mathrubhumi.com. He also complained about the autofill option. “I have to manually enter the details in the new site,” he added.
A CA practitioner from Kochi says apart from the slowness, the inability to access certain functions remain a headache to him.
“I am unable to save drafts in the appeal window. Also, the navigations within the site are quite complex compared to previous website. I struggled through initially.” He also faces issues with the digital signature.
People, mostly elders, who file the returns their own will find it difficult, he feels.
A business manager from Palakkad said that the data which can be entered in just one screen has spread over more than 8 pages. “The ease of use has gone completely. Also, the data migration from the previous site is not complete. You cannot view the historical data,” he said.
“Issues with generating forms 15CA and 15CB still remain. This is a very serious issue as many businesses depend on this,” he said. 15CA and 15CB are the certificates required for foreign remittance. Though the government has relaxed the norms, they are not the solution, the chartered accountant said.
“The government is trying to solve the glitches. It is progressing gradually. But they should have done a pilot run before launching the site,” he added.
Another chartered accountant from Thrissur said that she faced many issues initially though some are resolved now.
“The latest problem that I faced was when I tried to create a new account for a customer, the website kept closing itself in the last lap. It was annoying,” she said. A manager of a nationalised bank in Kannur attested to this that when he tried to file the return as his refund account number has changed, the site kept “rejecting the validation of new accounts.”
The website was launched on June 7 and the last date to file the returns is August 31.
Minister told the Parliament that “more than 700 emails detailing over 2,000 issues including 90 unique issues/problems in the portal were received from various stakeholders” so far.
Infosys, the company which manages the website, has acknowledged the glitches and taking “corrective measures,” the minister briefed in the Parliament.
The new income tax e-filing portal was launched as part of the Integrated E-filing and Centralized Processing Centre 2.0 Project. “The first phase of the project for Centralized processing Center 2.0 was commenced in November 2020 and over 5.93 Cr Income Tax Returns have been processed in the new system since then,” the minister informed the Parliament.
Report: Mathrubhumi News
Discussion about this post