Income tax reform: What is Faceless Assessment scheme?

 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiling the platform "Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest". (Screengrab: Youtube/PMO India)

 

 By: Express Web Desk

The Indian Express

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today unveiled faceless tax scrutiny and appeal and urged people to pay their due taxes and contribute to nation building. Modi said that the latest tax reforms by his government are an effort to make tax system seamless, painless and faceless.

The Faceless Assessment is being rolled out to remove the human interface between the taxpayer and the Income Tax (I-T) Department.

The Indian prime minister said that the faceless assessment and taxpayer charter will come into place from today itself, while the faceless appeal is going to be applicable from September 25.

But what exactly is Faceless Assessment?

Faceless Assessment is being rolled out to remove the human interface between the taxpayer and the Income Tax (I-T) Department. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the faceless tax scrutiny assessment and appeal would help in easing compliance burden of taxpayers and increase fairness and objectivity in the tax system. “It eases compliance burden, it brings in a fair objective and a just system, there shall not be any physical interface between the department and the taxpayer and to an extent, it shall bring in the certainty of information,” she added.

Take a look at the features of the Faceless Assessment Scheme:

• Selection of a tax payer only through system using data analytics and AI
• Abolition of territorial jurisdiction
• Automated random allocation of cases
• Central issuance of notices with Document Identification No. (DIN)
• No physical interface, no need to visit the income tax office
• Team-based assessments and team-based review
• Draft assessment order in one city, review in another city and finalisation in third city.

  So what are the exceptions to this?
  Cases relating to:

  • Serious frauds, major tax evasion, sensitive & search matters
  • International tax
  • Black Money Act and Benami Property 
    

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