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The majority of complaints and grievances are related to delay in issuance of refunds and clarity on tax demands raised, amid others.
Are you waiting to get resolution of a complaint that you lodged with the Income Tax Department months ago?
Then you are not alone, there are quite a few hassled taxpayers who have been queuing up with a laundry list of issues pertaining to refunds, returns and other issues.
Now, the good news
With Prime Minister Modi lending impetus to this long-standing grouse of tax payers by monitoring the grievance resolution of the IT department to ensure quick resolution of all pending cases, delays in addressing of taxpayers’ grievances in the Income Tax Department are likely to be a thing of the past.
Since the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is now working overtime to ensure that all pending cases are resolved at the earliest.
To make sure that there are no backlogs of cases under the grievance resolution system, the top authorities have been asked to monitor the situation.
Sharing of real time information of grievances resolution
IT Department officials have been asked to make sure that all customer grievances are resolved at the earliest and the reports are being shared by the concerned authorities on 'Sevottam' – the internal online platform connecting all income tax offices in the country.
The data for each case will be updated on the platform each day with day-to-day monitoring by the IT staff.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes, which is also the highest policy-making body of the IT department, will now be ensuring the timely disposal of all grievances as a top priority.
During the public grievance resolution initiative of the Prime Minister titled PRAGATI, the CBDT has assured that it will address the issue before the Prime Minister’s next review
Common types of grievances
According to media reports, more than 1 Lakh grievance petitions, requests and complaints are pending with the income tax department.
The majority of complaints and grievances are related to delay in issuance of refunds and clarity on tax demands raised, amid others.
Resolving your income tax grievance
The income tax department has a big umbrella with multiple departments dealing with various people and corporate.
In case if you have a grievance with any section within the income tax department, there is an elaborate appellate machinery to make sure that your grievances are resolved at the earliest.
How to file customer grievance
If any tax payer has a certain grievance, he can file a written complaint directly with the Regional Grievance Cell of his locality.
The Regional Grievance Cells resolves a large majority of complaints at the first stage itself. But if the grievance is not redressed by them, the applicant should make a duplicate application to the Central Grievance Cell.
The Central Grievance Cell has a supervisory function to oversee the various Regional Grievance Cells.
The Central Grievance Cell also attends grievances that are received directly.
The income tax department has also provided an online system to submit any grievance relating to Income Tax CPC and e-Filing.
In order to file a grievance online, the tax payer needs to login into the e-Filing portal at: https://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/UserLogin/LoginHome.html#sthash.mhg5xUql.dpuf.
As part of the grievance resolution system of the department, tax payers having grievances against an order of the associated assessing officer can go in appeal to the Deputy Commissioner (Appeals) or Commissioner (Appeals).
Usually most cases are resolved at this stage itself, but just in case the grievance is still not resolved, one can approach the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.
Even after this, the applicant is free to approach the court of law for any grievance resolution.
Use facilitation counters for updated information on your grievance
Each income tax office has a dedicated customer facilitation counter that assists every tax payer to get updated information of any complaints of grievances lodged with the IT department.
The Income Tax Department makes sure that every Wednesday the officers are available to listen to customer grievances to enable quick resolution.
Now with the Prime Minister insisting on quick resolution of all pending grievances, it is highly likely that all backlogs of complaints will be resolved very soon.
To make sure the initiative is a long term one and not a one off thing, the Prime Minister has stipulated the fourth Wednesday of every month for a monthly review.
During each review, the Prime Minister would be interacting with the union government secretaries and top state government officials to overlook the resolution of pending cases with the IT department.
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Photograph: Reuters