e-TDS filing mandatory from end fiscal

Even those corporates who have filed manual tax deducted at source (TDS) returns will be required to electronically file TDS returns by the year end, Income Tax department officials said in Ahmedabad on Friday.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes will shortly issue a circular in this regard.

Speaking at a familiarisation programme on the scheme of electronic furnishing of TDS returns, jointly organised by the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry and All Gujarat Federation of Tax Consultants, N K Jain, chief commissioner, Income Tax, Gujarat, said that over the recent past, the interface between the taxpayer and the department is decreasing exponentially.

He added that although a directorate for computerisation has been in place in the department since 1980, there has been a huge thrust on computerisation in the past four or five years.

"By March 2005, more than 500 offices will be connected to the National Computerisation Centre (NCC) of the IT department. This will provide a major boost to the electronic filing of Income Tax returns," Jain said.

Commenting on the outsourcing of permanent account number (PAN) allocation work to another agency, Jain said that there were about five per cent complaints earlier, most of which were related to delays in allotting PAN.

"The new system is not functioning at 100 per cent efficiency, but is still better than earlier," he said.

Jain said that the deadline for e-filing of TDS returns for corporates, which has now been extended to March 31, will not be extended any further.

"There will not be any more postponing of the deadline and the new system will be operational from the next fiscal," he said.

Earlier, June 1, 2003, was the deadline, which has been extended to March 31, 2004.

C B Bhave, managing director, National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) said that there has taken place a huge difference in the mindset of the people between 1997 and 2004.

"About six or seven years ago, the mindset of people was that things could not be done. This has changed to a feeling that anything can be done. If the e-filing of IT returns is like constructing a building, then the architect is the IT department and the builder is the NSDL," he said.