Soon, your I-T return will be processed in a day

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 16

The government today awarded a contract to Infosys for setting up an integral portal for e-filing of Income Tax (IT) returns and their processing, which is aimed at reducing the time for refund from the current 63 days to one. The project is named as “Integrated E-filing & Centralised Center 2.0”.

A decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.

He said the project has been awarded to Infosys through a “transparent lowest-bidding process”.

“The project will cost Rs 4,241.97 crore and will be completed in next 18 months and will be launched after three months of testing,” the minister said, adding once the integrated portal becomes operational, the projection is that rectification requests will come down to 0.2% from the current 2%, as the entire process will be completed in online domain.

After integration of e-filing of IT returns and their processing online, the time taken would reduce to one day from the present 63 days on an average, the minister said.

The current system, he said, has been a success and new project will be more tax-friendly. The e-filing and Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) projects have enabled end-to-end automation of all processes within the Income Tax Department using various innovative methods to provide taxpayer services and to promote voluntary compliance. The Cabinet also sanctioned a consolidated cost of Rs 1,482.44 crore for the existing CPC-ITR 1.0 project up to 2018-19.

The decision will ensure transparency and accountability besides faster processing of returns and issue of refunds to the taxpayers’ bank account directly.