The income tax department has launched a new income tax portal on 7th June 2021. The new e-filing portal is aimed at providing taxpayers a convenient and seamless experience. Today, in this article, we will discuss the features and benefits of the new income tax portal.
Why New Income Tax Portal is required?
Before we move ahead, let’s first quickly check as to why this new portal is launched. If you check the existing income tax portal, you will find it clumsy and hard to navigate. It is not user-friendly for the person visiting for the first time at least. It lakes so much information and looks outdated.
Our finance minister Shri Nirmala Sitaraman had declared in the Union Budget that the IT department is working on a seamless web portal for taxpayers. The portal will also auto-populate the key data points like your PAN No. Aadhaar No., Bank account details, Interest earned on the fixed deposits, Income earned through the stock market, and many more.
This is done to curb the tax underreporting by the people by not declaring the other source of income as mentioned above. A few months back IT department had sent show-cause notices to the people who had not reported other income for FY 2019-20.
So by launching the new portal, the income tax department will populate all your income earned through various sources. So that you don’t have any chance to hide the income.
Not only that, the new portal will make it easy for the people who want to apply for the new PAN card. The portal will help them to apply for a new PAN card within few minutes only.
Features of new income tax portal (E Filing 2.0)
Here are the main features of the new income tax portal which is also known as E filing 2.0.
- Easy to understand and navigate through the portal
- The portal is integrated with the immediate processing of income tax returns to issue quick refunds to taxpayers.
- All the important messages, interactions, and pending actions will be displayed on a single dashboard.
- Free income tax return preparation software for taxpayers. (Online & offline).
- Interactive flow for ITR makes it easy even without any tax knowledge.
- Pre-filled forms minimize data entry errors.
- New upgraded call center for taxpayers for an immediate answer to taxpayer’s queries.
- Tutorial videos, FAQs, live chat, and agents to help you fill the income tax return easily.
- All these features are available on the mobile app.
- Multiple new payment options like net banking, UPI, Credit card, RTGS/NEFT.
- Verify your income tax return without login in.
- Linking of Aadhaar with PAN is made simple.
- Pay your pending tax easily.
- Verify your PAN details.
- Apply for a new PAN/ update the existing PAN card.
Comparison between existing and new IT portal
| Existing IT Portal | New IT Portal |
|---|---|
| Looks clumsy and the taxpayer would be lost | Looks neat and easy to navigate |
| The taxpayer has to identify and select the IT form | A simple wizard will help you select the right form |
| The refund process is manual tan time consuming | Immediate refund process system |
| The taxpayer has to enter all the details | Details will be pre-filled by the IT dept. |
| Not all features are available in Mobile App | All the new features are available on Mobile App |
| Apply for a new PAN with charges | Apply for a new PAN free of cost |
| Limited payment options | Multiple payment options |
| No chatbot help available | Interactive Chatbot for assistance |
| The taxpayer must be logged in to verify the ITR | Varify your ITR without logging in |
Now let’s evaluate the new income tax portal on various parameters to check whether it is useful for the taxpayers or not. I will measure the parameters on a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the highest.
Speed
The new portal looks promising with the speed of filing income tax returns. The easy wizard-type questionnaire will help the taxpayer at every stage of filing. The new portal will save a lot of time as it will auto-populate the key details of the taxpayer. It will fetch the details through the PAN card number from various sources like a bank account, mutual fund account, Demat account, TDS certificate, and more.
It will give you all the basic and key details auto-populated on the form so that you don’t have to fill in the same on your own. This will not only save time but also ensure the accuracy of the income tax filing.
Points : 4
Accuracy
As I mentioned above that the income tax forms will come auto-populated for the taxpayers, it will eliminate the chances of error in data that is entered by the taxpayer. The wizard will help the taxpayer to select the correct income tax forms so that there is no confusion or error take place at the later stage.
There are video tutorials and FAQs also available to help the taxpayers in filing the income tax form accurately. The all-new call center will help the taxpayer as and when required. The income tax department has also introduced Chatbot for instant assistance while filing the ITR. With all these features, there are very rare chances of error in income tax filing.
Points: 5
Convenience
This is what the taxpayers are looking for while filing income tax returns. IT return is a subject that is hard to understand for a layman like me. But with this new IT portal, it becomes very easy for deciding the right ITR form and filing the ITR by yourself. The income tax department has also introduced the mobile App which also has all the features that are available on the portal.
There are various ways like FAQs, tutorials, chatbots that can help you answer your tax-related queries. The new portal comes with the pre-filled details so that you don’t have to fill it by yourself. Super easy and accurate income tax filing is the new way for the taxpayers.
Points: 5
Portal Usability
The new portal is user-friendly and easy to understand. Any layman can easily understand the details of the new income tax portal. Its simple and intuitive design makes it easy for the taxpayer to use by himself. Till now most of the taxpayers are outsourcing their ITR filing, but with this new portal, the trend will be different. More and more people will start using this portal by themselves.
The taxpayer needs little to No. knowledge of tax filing for using this portal. The wizard will ask you one by one relevant questions and if you answer them correctly, you will be able to file your income tax return by yourself.
Points: 5
New IT Portal FAQs
Here is the link to the new IT portal : www.incometax.gov.in
No., you will not be able to use the existing IT portal once the new portal is launched. The portal is launched on 7th June 2021.
No., you don’t need to re-register yourself on the new portal. Your existing profile will be transfer to the new portal by the IT department.
Yes, you can apply for new PAN card free of cost through the new IT portal.
Taxpayer can pay through net banking, UPI, NEFT/RTGS, credit card.
Yes, you can verify the IT return even without log in into the new IT portal.
Conclusion
The new income tax portal is easy to understand and user friendly. It will help taxpayers to file income tax return accurately and faster than ever before. The income tax department will update the portal with new features in the coming days. This portal is a win win deal for taxpayers and income tax department of India.