A meeting was held between officials of the Finance Ministry and Infosys on 22.06.2021 on issues in the new IT Portal. The meeting was presided over by Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Anurag Singh Thakur, also participated. The interaction was attended by Tarun Bajaj, Secretary Revenue; J. B. Mohapatra, Chairman, CBDT; Anu J. Singh, Member (L & Systems), CBDT, and officers of CBDT. Infosys was represented by its MD & CEO, Salil Parekh and COO, Praveen Rao and other members of their team. The meeting was also attended by 10 tax professionals from across the country, including representatives of ICAI and All India Federation of Tax Practitioners (AIFTP).
The new e-filing portal 2.0 of Income Tax Department (incometax.gov.in) went live on 07.06.2021. Since its launch, there were numerous glitches in the functioning of the new portal. Taking note of the grievances voiced on social media by taxpayers, tax professionals and other stakeholders, the Finance Minister had also flagged the issues to the vendor M/s Infosys, calling upon them to address these concerns. However, since the portal continued to be plagued by technical glitches causing inconvenience to taxpayers, it was decided to hold a meeting between Finance Ministry and Infosys as also other stakeholders here today. Suggestions in respect of the glitches on the portal were invited online by 18.06.2021. More than 700 emails detailing over 2,000 issues including 90 unique issues/problems in the portal were received in response to the same.
During the meeting, Sitharaman emphasised that enhanced taxpayer service is an important priority for the present Government and every effort should be made to amplify the same. While appreciating the role of ICAI and its president, Jambusaria and the ICAI’s positive contribution in giving shape to today’s meeting, the Finance Minister complimented them for providing specific nuanced inputs lying between the intersection of technology and taxation. Sitharaman also expressed her gratitude to the people who sent inputs through email and assured them that their suggestions would be taken up in all earnestness and would be addressed on priority.
The FM exhorted Infosys (service provider) to work on the tax portal to make it more user-friendly and expressed her deep concern on the various problems being faced by the stakeholders in the new portal which was expected to provide a seamless experience to taxpayers.
The team from Infosys took note of the issues highlighted. They acknowledged the technical issues in the functioning of the portal and shared the status of the resolution w.r.t the issues highlighted. They informed that Infosys has been working to fix the technical issues noticed in the functioning of the portal.
This interaction was followed by another detailed meeting between senior officers of the Department of Revenue and the Infosys team, covering technical issues in the new portal.