In an attempt to make the assessment process more transparent and corruption-free, the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier said that the tax department will promote faceless tax scrutiny. And continuing with it, the CBDT via a notification issued on September 12, 2019 has come up with the e-assessment scheme 2019 for the process.

As part of the scheme, e-assessment centres will be established at regional and national level and there shall be auto-allocation of different scrutiny matters among these centres. In the process, the assessees or the parties concerned will not have to be present in person at centres as well as all of the necessary correspondence among these centres and respective assesees shall be through electronic means and will be authenticated also digitally.

So, here in are few of the essential points that you may note as a taxpayer:

The faceless scrutiny shall be considered on some pre-specified risk assessment criteria and other broad-based factors-

1. In a case, a taxpayer under-reports his income or over-states his losses then a notice u/s 143(2) will be issued. The concerned has to file a reply within a fortnight from the date when the notice has been received from his or her end from the concerned online account only

The communication with regard to the notice will be made on the taxpayer's e-filing account, registered e-mail address with the department as well as on the dept's app.

2. Upon submission of the response, it will be deemed to have been successfully done only when the taxpayer receives the acknowledgment from the national e-assessment centre.

3. There shall be no personal interface either by way of taxpayer's personal presence or through authorized representative for the proceeding in relation to the scheme.

4. The fully automated scheme will assign the scrutiny case to any of the regional e-assessment centre via the automated process.

GoodReturns,in