Ratlam : Either Income Tax department should relax the need of registering or updating email ID or it should extend the last date of filing the Returns of Income, which is July 31. In a statement issued here on Monday the former President of Kar Salahkar Parishad and senior Tax Expert Dilip Patni said that according to decision of the Central Board of Direct Taxes; a valid email ID and mobile number have to be registered or updated on the e-filing website of the Income tax department. So that direct communication with the taxpayer can be possible, Patni said.
One mobile number or email ID can be used for a maximum of 10 user accounts as primary contact. This is to ensure that family members and related business concerns not exceeding 10 separate users and not having personal email or mobile can be covered under a common email or mobile. But in general, tax payers should have their own unique email ID and mobile registered with the department. The assessee can enter any other person’s email or mobile number in addition as a secondary contact for which, no restriction on the number of user accounts linked is imposed. But, at the first stage the primary email ID and mobile number will have to be registered and secondary ID and mobile number is to facilitate the receipt of emails and alerts etc.
However, Patni said that large number of assesses did not have their own E mail Id but do have mobile numbers. It is also mandatory in the case of income exceeding Rs 5 lakh to e file the Return of Income and therefore registration or updation of the Email ID and mobile number as primary contact is mandatory for filing the return of Income. Patni said that department earlier imposed that in no case in the primary contact four users accounts will have same E mail ID and mobile number but recently department has increased the number from 4 to 10 and also added secondary contact on which email and alerts will be sent.
Patni said that either Central Board of Direct Taxes should give some time for the updating or registering the new Email ID or mobile number as in many cases E mail ID does not exist of own but so far the Email ID of intermediaries were being used. If the time is not allowed then filing of the return will be affected as the last date approaching is July 31 in case of non-audit assesses. In the circumstances, it will become necessary to extend the date of filing the returns from July 31 to at-least one more month. This year new returns of ITR 4 to be used for the business income was also released late by the department in the mid of June and later it imposed the need of registering and updating the E mail ID of assessee’s own. The procedure, which department laid down is after entering the Email ID and Mobile Number or registration it will send separate one time passwords(OTP) also referred as PIN on the mobile and email provided. The OTP have to be entered after loggin into efiling account to authenticate the same. The OTP will remain valid for 24 hours within, which the tax payer has to complete the process For foreign tax payers or NRI the OTP validation of the mail ID would be sufficient.
This is one time process to validate the mobile number and email ID. However whenever the tax payer changes the mobile number or Email ID in the profile the process will be repeated to ensure that the particulars provided are correct. Assessees after giving their email ID and mobile numbers will have to be alert to see that they are kept in the safe list or while list to prevent the communications from the department being blocked or rejected or sent to spam folder .
