Working closely with IT department on tax portal: Infosys CEO Salil Parekh

Infosys has developed a new income tax e-filing portal ‘www.incometax.gov.in’ but soon after it went live, taxpayers flagged several glitches, leading to criticism of the IT company.

Following the glitches in the portal, the IT department had to allow manual filling of remittance forms and extended the due dates for electronic filing of information related forms by the Pension Fund and Sovereign Wealth Fund.

The government on Tuesday extended the deadline for corporates to file income tax returns for the financial year ending March 2021 till March 15. This is the third extension given to corporates for filing income tax returns for the financial year 2020-21. The original deadline for filing ITR for corporates was October 31, and November 30 for those with transfer pricing transactions.

Last year till December 31, more than 5.62 crore returns have been filed.

“On the IT project, we are extremely proud that till December 31, as reported, 5.8 crore returns were filed during that time frame. On the same day, over 46 lakh returns were filed and the deadline was met. was kept…” Parekh Company told reporters after announcing its earnings.

He also said that users were able to use the portal to file their tax returns and the company is grateful that it can contribute to the vision of Digital India.

“Going forward, we are working closely with the (IT) department on the next areas that will be part of this system as new modules are put together,” he said.

On 23 August, the finance ministry “invited” Parekh to explain why problems persisted with the portal, after reports of glitches on the portal were reported.

Since then several technical issues have been resolved and the performance of the portal has stabilized to a great extent.

On 16 December, senior officials of the ministry held a meeting with the Infosys team on the preparedness of the e-filing website during the peak filing period.

In that meeting, Infosys had informed officials about the steps it had taken, including setting up a dedicated war room to enhance the technical infrastructure and monitor the performance of the portal.

(with inputs from PTI)