Two lakh cases in faceless assessment ambit of which 35,000 evaluated: CBDT

He said the government is undertaking steps that bring more certainty for taxpayers while undertaking income tax-related works, adding the latest Budget announcement of providing more pre-filled financial details in the return filing forms is a step in that direction.

Calling the faceless assessment scheme of cases brought under scrutiny a step towards ensuring “better” taxpayer services, the top-ranking officer said the necessity to make additions in the income or imposing additional tax on an entity was only made in about 1,000 cases brought under this umbrella.

“I am happy to inform you that in the first phase we had allotted some 58,000 cases under the scheme (faceless assessment) and subsequently another about 1.20 lakh cases were added. Few more cases have been added…so there are roughly about 2 lakh cases (under the scheme at present),” the CBDT Chairman said.

So far, we have been able to complete more than 35,000 cases under this scheme and in those assessments hardly in about 1,000 cases some additions have been made, Mody said. The rest of the cases were processed and closed. The rest of the cases were processed and closed.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chief said faceless assessment has impacted in two ways: “One is wherever addition was not warranted those have been prevented and wherever additions ought to have been made those have also been taken care of.”

Mody said the scheme makes it clear that a taxpayer will not have to appear before the assessing officer of the income tax department for resolution of their tax issue. “We have a review unit which is an in-built part of the faceless assessment architecture…it gives a more fair and uniform treatment to the taxpayers and so far this scheme has been very successful.”

“So far, as personal hearing is concerned, there is no occasion to deny that but at the same time that also will be made available to the taxpayer only through video conferencing,” he said.

Under the faceless assessment system, a taxpayer or assessee is not required to visit an IT department office for resolution of their issues. A central e-based system picks up tax returns for scrutiny based on risk parameters and mismatches and then allots them randomly to a team of IT officers in any city. The scrutiny by these officers will be reviewed by officers at another randomly selected location.

On pre-filled forms announced in the Budget, Mody said taxpayers will have the option to edit the information if they feel it is incorrect.