E-filing of Income tax returns in India - These bureaucrats never change!

It is now time for resident individuals to file Income tax returns in India. The last date of submission is 31^st July 2010. I originally wrote this article last year, but I have updated it for the current year (Assessment year 2010-2011)

E- filing of returns is now in vogue for the past 4 years. 2 years before, there were quite some hiccups in the calculations and working of the spreadsheet program that the IT department provided. Almost till the last day, the department was issuing revisions in the spreadsheet program. I wasted lots of time in trying to get over those difficulties and finally took a print out of the form, filled it manually and submitted physically!

Year before last, the hiccups were less. I could electronically e-file the IT returns through the Internet. But the only trouble was that I had to get and acknowledgment after submission, take a printout and then physically hand over the Acknowledgment form to the IT office in duplicate, get one copy officially sealed and returned to me for our records.

I wonder how the bureaucrats come out with such “ingenious” methods to keep people glued to the good old ways of sticking to paper working, despite whatever advancements that take place in computerization and internet!

Alternatively, If you are in possession of electronic verified signature (getting of which involves spending money), your “signature verified” submission is good enough. No need of submitting printed acknowledgments.

Last year thought, at least this year they will take one step forward and avoid the unnecessary paper work of getting a printout of an acknowledgment and submitting it physically at the department. No! They came out with a more innovative method to keep sticking to the paper work last year too!

Oh! I thought some development will take place to avoid unnecessary paper work and postage this year at least. Nope! Do you know what you should do this year (if you do not have verified electronic signature)?

- Electronically submit your income tax return through Internet.

- Get an e-acknowledgment (that gets generated once your e-form is accepted successfully).

- Take a print out of the acknowledgment form in A4 size. No dotmatrix printing please. The bar code printed over there is important. No attachments, no stapling please. Printing should only be in black ink and you should sign ONLY IN BLUE INK! (Oh, the bureaucratic brilliance for the current year!)

- It should be sent only by NORMAL, Ordinary post or by Speedpost to an IT office located at Bangalore!

- It should NOT be sent by courier. If sent that way, it will not be accepted!

The only saving grace when compared to last year is that they have allowed the stuff to be sent by Speedpost this year. Last year's bureaucratic brilliance of insisting on sending the A4 size paper in A4 size cover without folding it has been dropped!

Now think of these consequences:

- Single IT office is going to receive millions of envelops in the course of next 15 to 20 days. We won't really know how many papers were lost in transit last year. Since Speedpost option is now included, there is reason to believe that there were lots of complaints.

- How many of these acknowledgment papers will finally reach the bar code reading machines in readable shape? How many of them will get entered into computer and then tallied with the original submissions?

And the Income tax department says, without these acknowledgment slips, the e-filed returns will not be considered as genuine submissions!

What is the purpose behind this exercise? If the purported procedure is to act as a check against fraudulent persons or unauthorized persons from submitting income tax returns, in what way it is going to prevent the same fraudulent or unauthorized person from taking a printout and mailing it?!

If the idea is to monitor or audit the e-filed returns from a different Income tax office other than the one which is going to scrutinize the actual IT returns, then what is the sanctity of asking for a printed acknowledgment which has every potential to get lost in the mail?

If at all such a monitoring is needed, why not ask the assessees to get a specific acknowledgment number after submission and then make them input that reference number in a database by entering into a web-portal? Or if they are still for correspondence, why not ask the assessees to just send an e-mail to a particular address furnishing their name, PAN number and the Acknowledgment number?

Oh! The more we think of the machinations of the working of the bureaucrat’s minds, the more we get exasperated and frustrated!