Income Tax e-assessments – Advantages and Disadvantages

e-Assessment – Electronic assessment, also known as e-assessment, online assessment, computer assisted/mediated assessment and computer-based assessment, is the use of information technology in various forms of assessment.

Electronic assessment under Income Tax have certain Advantages and Disadvantages. Advantages of Electronic assessment under Income Tax  includes Faceless assessment reduces chances of corruption, Saves time and efforts, Cloud storage and paperless office, Cost effective for the Government and Assessment is handled by two officers.

Some of the disadvantages of Electronic assessment under Income Tax includes Traditional offices face trouble in uploading of voluminous documents, Difficult to explain the subject entirely in submission without physical demonstration,  Officers make come to wrong conclusions when they don’t understand the submissions, Technical glitches on the portal delays submission process, Size of the file is restricted to 5MB and restriction on number of document per submission.

Detailed discussion on the subject is as follows:-

Advantages of Electronic assessment under Income Tax

♦ Faceless assessment reduced chances of corruption:

e–Assessment would almost eliminate person-to-person contact in the Tax Department for greater transparency in assessment procedures.

♦ Saves time and efforts:

Since assessment procedures are electronic it saves travelling time for assessee, also it saves effort to find jurisdiction/place of assessing officers.

♦ This is the future as cloud storage and paperless offices are growing:

Taxpayers can access/view all the documents that they might have submitted during the assessment period. Complete information related to all the submissions is saved in the e-Filing portal account which can be accessed any time for future reference. And risk like loss of files or damage to files are avoided due to e-Assessment.

♦ Cost effective for the Government:

Since assessment proceedings are paperless, it makes this initiative an environment-friendly project.

♦ Assessment will be handled by two officers:

E – assessment of a taxpayer will now be handled by two officers, instead of the current system involving a single assessing officer, deputation of two officials for one assessment case will aid in increased level of monitoring.

Disadvantages of Electronic assessment under Income Tax

♦ Traditional offices face trouble in uploading of voluminous documents:

Traditional offices which do not have sufficient infrastructure find difficulties in uploading voluminous documents.

♦Difficult to explain the subject entirely in submission without physical demonstration:

When submission is complex in nature at that time assessee need to give physical presence at the Income Tax office to explain the case to assessing officers.

♦ Officers make conclusions when they don’t understand the submissions:

Many times, because of complex nature of business assessing office find difficulties in understanding documents submitted by assessee, due to which officer conclude the assessment based on his understanding.

♦ Technical glitches on the portal delays the submission process:

It is possible sometimes speed of Internet is not good because some technical problems or excess load over Income Tax website, due to which assessee find difficulties in uploading documents at e-filing portal.

♦ Size of the file is restricted to 5MB:

Submission size of a single file is maximum 5MB. Assesses have come with complaints that documents are larger in size and not getting uploaded. When it is suggested to assessee that upload documents after dividing files, then it becomes an added burden on the assesses.

♦ Number of documents are restricted to 10 per submission:

When submission size is voluminous in nature at that time assessee needs to attach multiple documents but due to restriction on attachment assessee can not submit whole documents on e-filing portal.