In a bid to reduce harassment of tax payers, the income-tax department
is mulling setting up five centralised return processing centres in
different parts of the country.
The
concept is to provide one-stop service to a tax payer at one
centralised place — from filing returns to tax refunds and tax
certificates.
The income-tax department is also in the process
of hiring 7,500 additional staff. Some will be recruited directly while
others will be hired on a temporary basis or outsourced in the case of
non-core activities like data entry.
Acting on a committee
recommendation, the department was setting up the return ‘mass’
processing centres in New Delhi, Bhubaneswar and three other cities for
salaried as well as non-salaried class of assessees, official sources
said.
Once the returns are filed, the documents will go to the
central processing centre of that region and will be kept there after
being processed.
At the moment, tax returns remain with the assessing officer. This makes tax payers vulnerable to the officer’s misbehaviour.
“The
move will be good for tax payers as well as the I-T department. It will
help in systematic control and storage of records,” the source said.
However, assessing officers will be allowed to access the file of the
assessee whenever required.
With tax compliance improving and
income-tax rates getting stable, the focus of the I-T department on
reducing discretionary powers of assessing officers.
At the
moment, there is a mass return processing centre for salaried tax
payers in Mumbai, which is likely to be extended to non-salaried class
this year.
The move would guard tax payers against problems
such as delay by assessing officers in giving a refund, double tax
payment, time lag in getting a tax clearance certificate and
uncivilised behaviour of assessing officers.
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