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What is ‘faceless’ tax assessment? All you need to know
Under the system, appeals will be randomly allotted to any officer in the country. The identity of the officer deciding the appeal will remain unknown.
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While launching a new tax scheme on Thursday to honour and encourage honest taxpayers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the platform for “Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest” offers big reforms such as faceless assessment, faceless appeal, and taxpayers charter. PM Modi said that the new tax reforms will change the way taxes have being paid in the country.
“Faceless assessment and taxpayers charter come in force from today, whereas faceless appeal service will be available from September 25,” the prime minister said, adding that “faceless teams across India” will be checking IT returns and will redress grievances.
The Income Tax department will adopt a ‘taxpayer charter’ which outlines the rights and responsibilities of both tax officers and taxpayers.
Also Watch | ‘Tax system should be seamless, painless & faceless’: PM Modi
Shortly after the PM’s address on the occasion, Minister of State (MoS), Finance, Anurag Singh Thakur took to Twitter simplifying the ‘Faceless Assessment & Faceless Appeal’.
Faceless appeals
Under the system, appeals will be randomly allotted to any officer in the country. The identity of the officer deciding the appeal will remain unknown.
“These teams will be chosen randomly and can come from any city,” the prime minister said on Thursday. “Till now, all tax-related matters in a city are dealt with by the Income Tax department of that city. Now with the help of technology, scrutiny will be done by a randomly chosen IT officer anywhere in the country,” the PM added.
Also read: ‘Painless, seamless, faceless’: PM Modi says reforms will change how we pay taxes
Under the system, the taxpayer will not be required to visit the income tax office or the officer and the appellate decision will be team-based and reviewed.
Exceptions include serious frauds, major tax evasions, Black Money Act, Benami property.
Faceless assessment
The scheme aims to eliminate the interface between the taxpayer and the income tax department.
Under the system, the selection of a taxpayer is possible only through systems using analytics and AI. The system abolishes territorial jurisdiction. A taxpayer may belong to a particular city but the assessment order the review and the finalisation will take place in different cities. Cases will be automatically allotted on a random basis. There will be no need for the taxpayer to visit the income tax office or the officer. The appellate decision will be team-based and reviewed.
Any assessment, other than the exceptions outside the faceless scheme, will be invalid.
