When a large number of people find ways to avoid payment of tax, the burden falls on honest people, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an event, adding that now with a faceless tax assessment system the scenario would reverse. “In the last five years, more than 1.5 crore cars have been sold in the country. Over three crore Indians went abroad for work or travel. But the situation is that only one-and-a-half crore people in our country of more than 130 crore pay income tax,” Narendra Modi said. “So all scopes for any ‘game’ will be done away with,” he added.

Under the faceless tax assessment scheme, the assessing tax officer would not be able to identify whose tax was being computed. Similarly, the ones whose tax was being assessed would not know the official doing the same. A taxpayer receives notice on the registered email as well as on registered account on the web portal www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in with real-time alert by way of an SMS on the registered mobile number, specifying the issues for which the case has been selected for scrutiny, under the faceless e-Assessment scheme.

In the first phase, the income tax department has selected 58,322 cases for scrutiny, for which e-notices have been served before September 30, belonging to cases of Assessment Year 2018-19. Meanwhile, the budget 2020 revised downwards the net direct tax collection target to Rs 11.80 lakh crore. The set target was Rs 13.35 lakh crore for FY20 that ends on March 31. In the budget, the gross tax revenue has been pegged at Rs 24,23,020 crore, which is slightly lower than the Rs 24,61,194.93-crore Budget Estimate for FY20, implying a 12 per cent increase over the Revised Estimate of Rs 21,63,423 crore for the ongoing fiscal.

Source : PTI