Big growth! Rs 1.57 lakh crore - How faceless assessment is win-win for both Income Tax department and tax payers

The complete faceless assessment by Income Tax department has proved highly beneficial to both - the I-T department and tax payers as well. According to Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the Income Tax Department is now conducting complete faceless assessment and the refunds so far in this fiscal stood at Rs 1.57 lakh crore as compared to Rs 1.23 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.

"Income tax refunds so far in this fiscal are Rs 1.57 lakh crore as compared to Rs 1.23 lakh crore in the last fiscal. IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax) refunds so far this fiscal are Rs 38,988 crore as compared to Rs 56,057 crore in the previous fiscal," Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said as per a report in IANS.

"ITC (Input Tax Credit) refunds are at Rs 33,395 crore in FY20 as compared to Rs 36,513 crore in FY19. A total of 58,322 cases have been covered under the faceless assessment system and questionnaires have been issued in 19,883 cases," Pandey said at a press conference.

Tax refund cases: Big growth!

Panday said that tax refund cases have gone up by 17 per cent to 2.16 crore.

"The picture regarding revenue targets will be clear in the next few weeks. On December 15, the figures for advance tax for the third quarter will come and we will get a fairly good estimate of what is going to be the impact of corporate tax reduction. Then only we will arrive at a realistic figure as to what will be the revenue collection under income tax this year," said the Revenue Secretary.

Tax collection data

Tax collection data for this quarter, and estimates of the collections for the next quarter, will be released on December 15 or December 16.

e-invoice for B2B transactions

He further said that it will be compulsory for all the taxpayers with turnover of more than Rs 100 crore to generate e-invoice for all B2B transactions. The same will be optional for those businesses with a turnover of more than Rs 500 crore.

"We have implemented a completely automated refund process this year," Pandey said.

Total refunds under both direct and indirect taxes so far this year have reached Rs 2.2 lakh crore, he said. Pandey also said that the refund process for GST has been completely automated.  He further informed that 13,000 appeals against the tax department have been withdrawn from various courts. A total of 52,000 applications have been received for the settlement of Rs 27,911 crore under the Sabka Viswas legacy dispute resolution scheme, Pandey said.