Taking into account the complaints regarding harassment by Income Tax officials, the Union Finance Ministry has decided that notices, summons and orders by the Income Tax Department will now be issued through a centralized computer from 1st October.

This means, now the Income Tax authorities will no longer be able to issue a notice or summons to anyone by their own will or choice and the information about the notice or summons issued will be available with everyone.

On Friday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave this information in a press conference, she said that the notices, summons or orders issued by the Income Tax Officer or Income Tax Department without a centralized computer will not be considered valid. Apart from this, the summons, notices or orders which have already been issued by the Income Tax Department or Income Tax Officer so far, will be reissued online from October 1.

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The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has announced that from October 1, 2019, all letters and notices issued by the income tax department will come along with the Document Identification Number (DIN) which is a computer-generated number and will be verifiable on the e-filing portal of Income Tax department.
Besides, CBDT has come up with the facility on the e-filing portal which will enable the taxpayers to validate their income tax notices. The taxpayers will be able to authenticate their income tax notices either through Document number/ PAN, assessment year along with any other mandatory information as needed.

The Finance Minister also added that these notices, summons and orders will be disposed of within a period of three months and will not be procrastinated for so long. This means besides sending the notices online from 1st October, the government will resolve down all the income tax notices within three months. The notices that remain unsettled will be uploaded on the platform of the income tax department for monitoring purpose.

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The government aims to improve the liability & elevate the transparency in taxation system and has taken this step to completely knock off the fear of the Income Tax Department and Income Tax officials from the industry and individuals.