Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Livemint
Livemint
National
Gireesh Chandra Prasad

Faceless assessment eased by rule tweak

Under Income Tax Act, authentication by electronic verification code—now defined as filing from the department’s portal—is available only for certain taxpayers other than companies and those needing tax audits.

NEW DELHI : The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Tuesday said income tax rules have been amended to offer a simplified way of authenticating electronic records used in faceless assessment proceedings. 

The amended rules say that electronic records submitted through the registered account of taxpayers in the department’s portal will be deemed to have been authenticated by the taxpayer by an electronic verification code (EVC). Such authentication is equivalent of the signature of the person. 

Under the Income Tax Act, authentication by EVC—now defined as filing from the department’s portal—is available only to certain taxpayers besides companies and those needing tax audits. 

In the case of companies and entities requiring tax audits, existing provisions do not allow such simplified process of authentication by EVC, and they were mandatorily required to authenticate the electronic records by digital signature. A decision has been taken to extend the facility to them also. 

“In order to provide the benefit of the simplified process of authentication by EVC to these persons, it has been decided to extend the simplified process of authentication by EVC to these persons also. Hence, the persons who are mandatorily required to authenticate electronic records by digital signature shall be deemed to have authenticated the electronic records when they submit the record through their registered account in the income tax department’s portal," CBDT said in a statement. Legislative amendments in this regard shall be proposed in due course, CBDT said.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.