IT refunds on Website

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, JULY 19. Taking another step towards ushering a taxpayer-friendly administration, the Income Tax Department, Delhi, has gone ahead and put up details about income-tax refunds and their status on the official website for salaried employees. A ``Tax Helpline'' has also been put in place for redressing the grievances of people.

The names of assessing officers, their contact numbers including those of the Joint and Additional Commissioners along with that of the Commissioner Income Tax (Salary), have been flashed on the website to bring about a sense of transparency and reach out to the taxpayer in a professional manner. People would no longer have to run from one office to another to seek refund. This would also remove the small element of corruption and provide big relief to assesses.

``Details of all 1.5 lakh refunds upto the assessment year 2000- 2001 have been put up on the income tax website. The information can be accessed by opening the website wwwincometaxdelhi.nic.in. This is a major step to remove obstacles in the way of handling of refunds, a major grievance of the taxpayer,'' the Commissioner Income Tax (Salary), Mr. S.N. Shukla, said here today.

Mr. Shukla said the website, which had been put in place after a lot of research and effort, had started functioning from today and people could check the status of their refunds by loging on to it under the head ``Press Release''. It would carry names, addresses, date of refund and the amount which had been refunded. The website would also carry details about refund orders which have been returned by the postal authorities for some reason or other. However, he pointed out, a majority of the funds were returned due to change of address which was not intimated to the Income Tax Department on time or not at all.

The next step, Mr. Shukla said, would be to put details of the current refunds on the website. Action for this is in the pipeline and it would take some time before this is done. But he made it clear that all the refunds in the Salary Circle up to 2000-2001 had been cleared and if somebody had a problem, he or she should immediately contact his assessing officer. The website also has a section where the assessee could send his grievance directly to the Chief Commissioner, Delhi, which would be dealt with immediately.

Mr. Shukla stated that a ``Tax Helpline'' had been put in operation and anybody encountering any problem could just log on to the website and lodge a specific query with the `Helpline'' which would be addressed instantly. The tax payers could also call up on telephone numbers -- 3414697, 3412419, 3378420 -- to sort out their problems. These lines are open for senior citizens and pensioners also, he added.

Stating that steps were being taken regularly to reduce the difficulties faced by tax payers, the Commissioner, Income Tax said in another measure, a new office of the Income Tax Officer (Foreign Section), had been opened at Mayur Bhavan to ensure speedy issuance of Income Tax Clearance Certificate to those wanting to go abroad. Earlier, assessees had to run between Mayur Bhavan and C.R. Building a number of times before the certificate was issued. Now this would no longer be a problem, he added.

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