Overview of Things to know about E-assessments

CBDT issues an instruction for conducting the scrutiny assessments electronically.

As per the instruction, except search related assessments, all scrutiny assessments shall be conducted only through the ‘E-Proceeding’ functionality available at e-filing website of Income-tax Dept.

The Board has laid down the procedures to be followed by the tax officers to conduct the scrutiny assessment electronically.

Ten-things to know about this instruction and e-Proceeding facility of Income-tax Dept. are as under:

• All the communications with the taxpayers shall be signed digitally by the tax officer and it will be delivered to a taxpayer in his e-filling account.
• On receipt of Dept. communication, taxpayer would be able to submit the response along with the attachments by uploading the same on e-filing portal.
• All the submissions and replies should be made by the taxpayer till office hours on the date stipulated for compliance.
• The response submitted by the taxpayer can be viewed by the concerned tax officer electronically in Income-tax Business Application (ITBA) Module.
• Facility for electronic submission of documents shall be automatically closed 7 days before the time barring date.
• Upon conclusion of hearing in assessment proceedings but before passing the final order, the concerned tax officer shall close the e-submission facility.
• Not all proceedings shall be carried out electronically. A few proceedings can also take place manually, i.e., examining the books of accounts, examination of witness, etc.
• The case-records and note sheets of proceedings is required to be maintained by the tax officer electronically.
• This electronic proceedings shall be carried out by the tax officers for Limited Scrutiny (in case of CASS1), Complete Scrutiny (in case of CASS) and Compulsory Manual Scrutiny.
• The taxpayer friendly measure would substantially reduce the compliance burden for the taxpayers as it would enable them to submit response to the Departmental queries electronically as per their convenience.