How to e file your return of income ? View easy steps.

The Income Tax of India website lets taxpayers of all kinds, to file their returns online, free of cost. The steps involved are explained in the main home page of the website. 

Before you begin, keep all relevant information such as your Form 16, your investment details, your income from other sources etc., ready at hand.

Step 1: You would need to register with the portal through which you desire to file your returns. Most tax return filing sites are user-friendly and help you through the process in a step-by-step manner. You can achieve the same task by downloading Excel utility from the IT department website. However it may be difficult to use.

Step 2: Details such as name, address, PAN, total salary, deductions etc are collected in a digital format.

Step 3: An ITR XML file is generated which is your electronic income tax return. Do not try to make sense of it as it's a bit technical.

Step 4: You would need to upload this ITR XML file on the Income Tax website. For doing this, an account needs to be created in the Income Tax website using your Permanent Account Number.

Once uploaded, an acknowledgement receipt called ITR Form-V would be generated. This needs to be signed and sent to 'Income Tax Department -- CPC, Post Box No. 1, Electronic City Post Office, Bangalore -- 560100, Karnataka' within 120 days of e-filing.
 
Step 5: You would receive a confirmation from the IT department, acknowledging the receipt of ITR-V. This is your final acknowledgement that concludes your e-tax filing.

As you would be entering your financial information, ensure the site you log in to is trust worthy and has a security certificate.

If you do not wish to post the ITR-V form to the IT office, you could alternatively use an 'electronic signature' to authenticate your identity. Sending by post is mandatory only when returns are filed without the use of a signature.

If the ITR-V is not submitted within 120 days of e-filing, what has been submitted will be considered as null and void. In such a case you will have to file your returns again, get a new ITR-V and submit the same within 120 days.

If one requires an 'E-Refund', that is, when the refund process is carried out electronically, the details of refund (if any) are filled up online in a prescribed form. After approval of refund request by the concern authority, the refund amount will credited to your bank account.

E File your Return Here.

Source : Rediff.com

Senior citizens and small taxpayers will be out of scrutiny.

Appreciating the concern of these taxpayers and with a view to mitigate their hardships,  Central Board of Direct Taxes has reviewed its scrutiny selection procedure. In order to redress the grievance, it has been decided that during the financial year 2011-12, cases of senior citizens and small taxpayers, filing income-tax returns in ITR-1 and ITR-2 will be subjected to scrutiny only where the Income Tax department is in possession of credible information. 
Senior citizens for this purpose would be individual taxpayers who are 60 years of age or 
more. Small taxpayers would be individual and HUF taxpayers whose gross total income, before 
availing deductions under Chapter VIA, does not exceed Rupees ten lakh


View the CBDT Press Release.

Outsourcing of Data entry to continue : CBDT Chairman.

From the desk of Chairman, CBDT      S.N. 15/March 8,2011

Out sourcing of data entry work at CPCs

The CPC business model has emerged only after prolonged deliberations, BPR study, various decisions of Government & ground realities. CPC is a major administrative reform which aims to add capacity, enhance efficiency & provide taxpayer services of international standards. However, apprehensions have been raised by staff unions about outsourcing of data entry work in CPCs. To address their concerns, CBDT considers it necessary to bring to the knowledge of all the members of the income tax family the following:

a.                  CPC business process was approved by Union Finance Minister on 18/01/2008, which included:

“CPC would follow a partly outsourced model wherein logistics of return movement, imaging, data entry and final storage would be outsourced….”

b.                  BPR study recommended outsourcing of non core functions which were accepted by CBDT on 02/04/2008 in its meeting no. 07/2008.

“Recommendations

It is also recommended that certain activities such as those of facilitation centers, return data scanning and digitization, call center, record management in offsite storage etc to be considered for out sourcing

Accepted.”

c.                  Business model of CPC was examined by the Technical Evaluation Group and was approved by F.M. on 29/09/2008.

d.                  Union Cabinet approved CPC Bengaluru project & its model on 04/02/2009.

e.     Views of the present Finance Minister

F.M. has emphasized and requested Department to evolve PPP model for non –core activities and concentrate on core functions.

ü      Speech of Hon’ble F.M. on 29/05/2010 while inaugurating CPC

“Bulk processing of returns and redesigning the procedures in a centralized facility was determined to be the most efficient way to increase the processing capacity of the Department. The CPC project at Bengaluru was approved by the Union Cabinet at a total cost of Rs 255 Crore over a 5-year period. It should be endeavour of the Department to achieve economies of scale by automating non-core processes in partnership with the corporate sector and to attain operational excellence by high quality and service compliance levels. I am sure Department would save valuable skilled manpower by using technology intensive initiatives like the CPC for non-core areas. The skilled manpower so available can be used for deepening and widening of the tax base and also for investigations of cross border transactions, which have high revenue potential.”

ü      Speech Of The Hon’ble Finance Minister During The 26th Annual Conference Of CCITs / DGITs At New Delhi on 09/06/2010

ü       

“A number of services offered by the Department have become technology driven. It may not be possible to deliver the services of desired quality in the existing structure of tax administration. CBDT may come out with a new structure, which leads to faster adoption of technology and innovation. The CBDT may, therefore, consider hiving off its technology driven taxpayer services to a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which can better deliver such services in the public-private-partnership mode. This will lead to innovation in delivery of services to taxpayers and also involvement of public in delivering the services.”

ü      FM’s Speech to mark 150 Years of Income Tax in India

“A lot more remains to be done. The Department needs to reinvent itself to meet the challenges of the next 50 years. The Department should concentrate on its core functions of data mining, risk profiling and risk-assessment; tax enforcement and recovery; dispute resolution and grievance redressal; taxpayer awareness and education; and other administrative, judicial, audit and Parliament-related functions.

e.      Data Entry in the Department

(i)    Department is not able to digitize returns on its own. Outsourcing of data entry started ever since Department started processing of returns on system. More than Rs 14 Crs per annum is now spent on data entry on out-sourced personnel all over the country:

FY 08-09	FY 09-10	FY 10-11
Rs 9.9 Cr	Rs 12.19 Cr	Rs 14.63 Cr

(ii) Even after data entry by outsourced resources, all returns are not getting digitized & processed on system. For AY 08-09, only about 2 crore paper returns could be processed on system and there is no visibility of remaining returns. Such returns escape scrutiny selection also.

(iii)      DT-01 is a classic example of failure to digitize in-house. This was the first pilot CPC set up with in- house data entry and with no out sourcing. However, it failed and has resorted to out sourcing to get over the crisis.  In the DT-01 center, willingness of staff to be posted has always been a challenge. Typical pattern of processing has been that only 5-10% of processing of returns is done by December, and the processing rate increases sharply only after resorting to out-sourcing.

(iv)     More than 2.3 Crs paper returns of AY 09-10 were carried forward to current year & are yet to be entered. Even after almost 21 months, 30 lac returns including more than 4.5 lac refund cases are still pending to be processed.

(v)     Delayed Returns processing leads to delayed refunds causing taxpayers’ grievances & giving bad name to the Deptt. We also face adverse criticism from various committees of parliament on this issue.    

CONCLUSION:

i.        Data entry of all carried forward & current returns in stipulated time frame is impossible without the out-sourcing of data entry of paper returns at CPC.

ii.  Out sourcing of data entry work at CPC is as per the approval of Union Cabinet & Union Finance Minister

iii. It is a non- core and non- critical function whose outsourcing is as per the policy of the Government.

All the members of the income tax pariwar are requested to work whole heartedly & make CPCs a resounding success.

Income Tax Cadre review is likely in May/June 2011.

The Cadre Restructuring Proposal submitted by the Department has been approved by the Department of Expenditure and by the Finance Minister. This has now been forwarded to the Department of Personnel for their consent. According to sources the proposal may be cleared by the DOPT in the month of April. The next step is to get the approval of the Union Cabinet. The entire process, according to the information from the Directorate of Human Resource Development, CBDT, is likely to be over by May-June, 2011.

Income Tax to be more electronically equipped, Kolkata to get Central Processing Centre.

Various tax initiatives have been taken in the Union Budget 2011-12 for efficient tax administration. Presenting the Budget in the Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee highlighted the initiatives including e-filing and e-payment of taxes, adoption of ‘Sevottam’ concept by CBEC and CBDT, web based facility for tax payers track the resolution of refunds and credit for pre-paid taxes and augmentation of processing capacity.

The on-line preparation and e-filing of income tax returns, e-payment of taxes through 32 agency banks, ECS facility for electronic clearing of refunds directly in taxpayers’ bank accounts and electronic filing of TDS returns are now available throughout the country.

The ‘Sevottam’ concept has been adopted by both Boards i.e. CBDT and CBEC. The pilot projects of Aaykar Seva Kendras (ASKs) under CBDT have come of age. CBDT will commission eight more such centres this year. In 2011-12, another fifty ASKs will be set up across the country. CBEC has also launched a similar initiative and four of their pilot projects have been commissioned.

The Centralized Processing Centre (CPC) at Bengaluru has increased its daily processing capacity from 20,000 to 1.5 lakh returns in 2010-11. Two more CPCs will become operational in Manesar and Pune by May 2011 and a fourth CPC will come up in Kolkata in 2011-12.

The electronic filing of tax deduction at source (TDS) statements has stabilized and soon there will be provision for salary tax payers to not file income tax returns as their tax liability is being discharged by their employer through TDS.

As a measure to increase the level of service CBDT will provide a web-based facility to enable tax payers to report and track the resolution of the refunds and credit for pre-paid taxes. 
Source : PIB Press Release