Central Excise plans Rs 160 cr investment for e-filing of taxes

The Department of Central Excise and Service Tax plans to initiate many pilot projects in different cities. The automation of departments will cost around Rs 160 crore and is expected to save time and money for both the government and tax payers and thus enhance productivity and speed up tax processes.

Speaking at the seminar organised by The Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) under the aegis of its Indirect Taxation Committee on 'Automation of Central Excise, Service Tax and E-Filing', V Sridhar, director general of systems and data management, said, "Initially we are working on automating Central Excise and Service Tax system in four cities comprising 28 administrations."

"Automation will help in linking information and reporting of high value transaction, simplifying of returns, forms and procedures. It will also help decentralise tax payment challans, time-bound refunds including electronic credit of refund in the taxpayer?s bank account, e-filing of PAN application and on-line filing of returns," said Sridhar

"The e-filing of TDS returns will result in reduction in the cost of compliance. As part of e-governance initiatives, many new pilot projects for electronic payment of customs duty will be introduced shortly, which will reduce physical interface between the taxpayer and the tax collector and the transaction costs of the assesses. Similarly, e-filing of customs documents relating to imports and exports and e-filing of income tax, Central excise and service tax returns will reduce compliance costs for taxpayers", added Sridhar.

Speaking on E-Filing, Anant R Koppar, president, BCIC said, "E-Filing is an extremely useful and advanced step in the direction of simplifying the filing of returns and the documents by industry and helps in making the system transparent giving quick results. There is a need to understand the system thoroughly by the various players to get the best out of the new system."