income tax e-filing portal: New income tax portal to be launched today: Faster income tax refund, other features and benefits

The income tax department is launching its new e-filing portal, www.incometax.gov.in, today, i.e., on June 7, 2021. The new portal will replace the existing link www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in.

Abhishek Soni, CEO, Tax2win.in says, “At the moment, the income tax website is yet to be launched. Meanwhile, it was opened in the early morning for a few minutes and we have captured glimpses of the new portal. The new portal is user-friendly. There is a user-friendly ‘Help’ section where videos and content that are useful for taxpayers. There is a ‘Chat’ option and Helpline numbers as well.”

As per a press release issued by the Ministry of Finance on June 5, 2021, the new e-filing portal will provide following facilities to taxpayers:

• The new e-filing portal will enable immediate processing of ITRs which will lead to issue quick of income tax refunds to taxpayers;
• A single dashboard will be available on the new portal. This dashboard will display all the interactions and uploads or pending actions for follow-up action by taxpayer;
• The ITR preparation software for ITR form -1 and 4 (Online and offline) and ITR 2 (offline) will be free of cost to begin with;
• Further other ITR forms i.e. ITRs 3, 5, 6, 7 will be made available shortly thereafter;
• The new portal will provide certain details of income including salary, house property, business/profession pre-filled the ITR.
• Further, detailed enablement of pre-filling with salary income, interest, dividend and capital gains will be available after TDS and SFT statements are uploaded. The current due date of uploading such details is June 30th, 2021;
• A new call centre will be made available for taxpayer assistance for prompt response to taxpayer queries. Further, detailed FAQs, user manuals, videos and chatbot/live agent also provided;
• Functionalities for filing ITR, add tax professionals, submit responses to income tax notices in Faceless Scrutiny or Appeals would be available on the new portal;
• A mobile app will be released later as well to enable taxpayers to get familiar with the various features.

The department has further said that the new tax payment system will be launched on June 18th, 2021 after the advance tax instalment date to avoid any taxpayer inconvenience. The new tax payment system will provide more payment methods such as Net banking, UPI, Credit card and RTGS/ NEFT.

The new e-filing portal is aimed at providing convenience and a modern, seamless experience to taxpayers, as per the press release. The new portal, launched by the tax department, can be seen as a bid to compete with private income tax filing websites and also make it easier for taxpayers for filing their income tax return (ITR), checking TDS etc.