From April 2005, income tax payers will be able to see details of their tax payments on the Internet, instead of waiting for the government to confirm it months after filing of returns.

After putting in place the Tax Information Network (TIN) in 2004, the finance ministry is planning to introduce an electronic 'PAN Book', which would furnish details of the tax payments by tax-payers, official sources said.

The National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) has been asked to start the online PAN Book from April to enable assesses to see their tax filing records instantly.

NSDL chairman C B Bhave confirmed the move and said, "We will start building the e-PAN book, which will be a ledger account for each PAN cardholder."

The new system will enable three crore assessees to check if their payments have been received, besides enabling them to see their past records.

Under the new system, the assessees might be asked to pay taxes quarterly as against the system of annual filing to reduce the workload.

After introducing online payment of corporate taxes, the finance ministry is also planning to introduce a system of online payment of excise duties. To start with, it has asked NSDL to run a pilot scheme on excise collection beginning January 17 in Chennai.

Under the scheme, banks will give information to NSDL and then the excise department will compare the physical document with that of the NSDL system, for a couple of months.

If this succeeds, tax authorities will get data on nationwide excise collection through NSDL's online system.