Faceless Income Tax Appeals Launched by CBDT: Here’s All You Need to Know

The new platform will ensure a transparent tax environment by eliminating physical interface between tax authorities and taxpayers.

New Delhi: In good news for taxpayers, the Income Tax Department on Friday launched faceless income tax appeals under which all appeals will be finalised in a faceless manner. However, the faceless system of assessment will not apply to a certain category of cases like black money, international taxation cases, serious fraud cases and tax evasion cases.

The new platform will ensure a transparent tax environment by eliminating physical interface between authorities and taxpayers and allow users to contest any tax claim without any personal interaction with authorities.

This will allow taxpayers to make submissions from the comfort of their home and save their time and resources.

Income Tax Dept launches Faceless Income Tax Appeals. All Income Tax appeals will be finalised in a faceless manner with exception of appeals relating to serious frauds, major tax evasion, sensitive & search matters, International tax & Black Money Act: Ministry of Finance

— ANI (@ANI) September 25, 2020

What will it entail?

-Starting from today, all income tax appeals, everything from e-allocation of appeal, e-communication of notice/ questionnaire, e-verification/e-enquiry to e-hearing, e-communication of the appellate order will be online

-Notices will be sent only by the centralised computer system, and the taxpayer can respond to them electronically without the requirement of visiting a tax office or meeting any official.

How it works:

Under Faceless Scrutiny Assessment, a central computer picks up tax returns for scrutiny based on risk parameters and mismatch and then allots them randomly to a team of officers.

This allocation is reviewed by officers at another randomly selected location and only if concurred, a notice is sent by the centralised computer system. All such notices need to be responded electronically, without the requirement of visiting a tax office or meeting any official.

The move has been appreciated

Welcoming the initiative, industry experts said that it will minimise grey areas, eliminate discretion, and promote transparency and certainty.

The move will help make India a competitive economy amid a changing global order by improving ease of doing business while instilling confidence among Indian industry, experts noted.