Taxpayers Electronic Interface with Income Tax Department
IN December 2015 ( 28 12 2015), the Revenue Secretary had directed that any notice/letter/communication issued by any officer under Department of Revenue including CBDT, its directorates and field formations to the tax payers, members of public should invariably contain mention of email address and office phone numbers, of the officers signing such, communications/notice/letters for facilitating tax payers' electronic interface with the Department.
It has come to the notice of the CBDT that that the notices do not contain any such details. This has led to a situation where the taxpayers who want to communicate with the Assessing Officer through e-mail or wish to make statutory compliance electronically are unable to do so. Further, non furnishing of official telephone number also causes inconvenience to the taxpayer concerned in case he needs to seek any clarification from the Assessing Officer.
Therefore, looking into the difficulties being faced by the taxpayers due to lack of proper compliance with earlier directions of the Board by some income-tax authorities, Board wants all income-tax authorities to invariably mention their official email Ids along with official telephone numbers/fax number in all notices/letters/communications being issued by them to the taxpayers.
Further, in all time-barring scrutiny cases and in cases where notice for any statutory proceeding has been issued during this financial year till now without the necessary communication details of the income-tax authority concerned, such information should be furnished to the concerned taxpayer immediately.
Board wants the Commissioners (Appeals) also to follow these instructions while handling appellate matters.
CBDT F.No. 225/214/2016/ITA.II., Dated: August 30. 2016