New Delhi, August 19: To address concerns pertaining to the newly implemented faceless assessment scheme, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman PC Mody Tuesday met virtually income tax field units.
According to a source, Mody explained the faceless assessment and taxpayers' charter, and also detailed the reallocation and reorganisation aspects of the department's manpower.
The source said, "He elucidated that it was being done within the existing manpower preferably at the existing locations, and also sought to dispel all kind of misgivings and misapprehensions, which may have been reflecting on the minds of the officials of the department with regard to the national launch of the faceless assessment scheme.”.
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Mody also told officers that the scheme's implementation would not cause any large-scale movement of officers or officials, and there would be no reduction in the existing infrastructure and resources of the department.
The chairman also explained the role and constitution of national e-assessment centre (NeAC) and regional e-assessment centres (ReACs). He expressed confidence that given the immense talent pool within the I-T department, the service would definitely rise to the occasion and make the transition to transparent taxation a reality.
He went on to say that the new system was important to uphold the dignity of the service and also to change the narrative of negative public perception into a positive one.
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Under the new faceless system, tax scrutiny and assessment would be decided by an online system so that direct interface between the taxpayer and the administrator is reduced. Also, this is expected to reduce allegations of bias of tax authority against taxpayers, explained Mody.
According to sources, during the meeting, CBDT member SK Gupta explained its various nuances, along with the differences between the manual scrutiny process and the faceless assessment introduced in October 2019.
Finance Ministry sources said that the demand management strategy to be adopted by the Income Tax Department was also discussed to identify and clean-up pending demands so that the correct demand, if any, could be made available to the taxpayers. As a part of cleaning-up of demand, all pending rectifications and appeal effects were to be attended on priority as this was also one of the key factors of a transparent tax administration.
