Income Tax E-Proceedings

What is an ‘e-Proceeding’?

It is an electronic platform created by the Income Tax department. The main purpose of this platform is to conduct proceedings from the beginning to the end, i.e, in an ‘end to end’ manner. Income tax proceedings have become more efficient and transparent due to this online portal.
Under the ‘e-proceeding’, you can see and check for all the letters/notices/intimations by the Income-tax department. Under the same portal, you can file for responses along with uploading documents. These responses are then viewed electronically by the assessing officer in ‘Income Tax Business Application’. This electronic review saves time not only of the assessee but also of the department.

What are the benefits of ‘e-Proceedings’?

• Risks like loss of file or damage to files are avoided due to this portal.
• Eventually, the compliance burden on the taxpayer reduces and it also provides faster solutions to the taxpayer’s tax-related compliances.
• Since assessment proceedings are paperless, it makes this initiative an environment-friendly project.
• Taxpayers can access/view all the documents that they might have submitted during the assessment period. Complete information related to all the submissions is saved in the e-Filing portal account which can be accessed any time for future reference.

Different types of notices from the Income Tax department and how to respond to them

There are different types of notices which are issued by the Income Tax department to the taxpayer. In this section, you can find steps on how to respond to various kinds of notices.

Intimation under Prima-Facie Adjustments under section 143 (1) (a):

Follow the steps mentioned below to respond to the Prima-Facie Adjustments notice issued by the department under section 143 (1) (a).

• Visit the Income Tax filing portal by clicking on the link mentioned:
  https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home

  

• Click on ‘Login Here’ under ‘Registered User’ located on the right side of the screen. Fill in your ‘user Id’ which is your PAN number along with the password and captcha code. After filing in all the details, click on ‘submit’ button.

  

• After logging in, select ‘e-Proceedings’ link from under the ‘e-Proceeding’ tab.
• You will be redirected to a new page and this new page will display all the notices you might have received. This page will contain detailed information about the notices which will include:
  1. your PAN,
  2. name of proceeding,
  3. the assessment year,
  4. status of the proceeding,
  5. limitation date of the proceeding,
  6. action date and closure date of the proceeding
• To view the proceeding details, you will have to click on the hyperlink ‘Adjustment under section 143 (1)’ which is available under ‘Proceeding name’.
• With this hyperlink, you will be able to see additional proceeding details of that particular assessment year such as:
  1. Notice/Communication reference Id
  2. The section under which the notice is issued
  3. Detailed information about the notice
  4. Date of issue
  5. Date of serving the notice
  6. The due date for response
  7. Document Id
  8. Responses if any
• If you want to see the details of the notice issued, you need to click on ‘Notice/communication reference Id’. And if you wish to file a response against a particular notice, you can do so by clicking on ‘submit’ present under the ‘response’ section.
• Once you have clicked on ‘submit’, a new page will be displayed. This page will contain all the mismatches found in your Income Tax Return due to which notice was sent in the first place. You (taxpayer) can find different responses at the end of the page

• The three available options are: Agree, Disagree, and Partially Agree. These responses are explained in detail at the end of this section.

  

• The further process is based on your choice of response.

Agree:

You select this response when you agree with the mismatches found in your ITR by the portal. In this case, before you submit the response, you must upload the revised/updated return.

• To file a revised return, you need to click on ‘please file a revised return’ which is right beside ‘Agree’ option. Alternatively, you can do the same by clicking on ‘e-File’ and then ‘Income Tax Return’.
• Once you have filed the revised return, ‘Latest Revised Acknowledgement Number’ will be generated. This number will automatically be filled in the page containing information about the mismatches.
• After the revisions are done, click on ‘submit’. You will see a success message on the screen reading ‘Agreed and Revised Return filed’.

Partially Agree:

You choose this response when you partially agree with the variances produced by the department. Under this, you must file a revised return for the agreed discrepancies before you submit a response for the disagreed ones.

• You can file the revised return for the agreed discrepancies by clicking on ‘please file a revised return’. You can find this link next to the ‘Partially agree’ option. There is an alternate route for the same. Click on ‘e-File’ and then on ‘Income Tax return’ to file the revised return.
• Once you have filed the updated return, ‘Latest Revised Acknowledgment Number’ will be generated. This number will automatically be filled in the page which contains information about the discrepancies. After filing the revised return, you need to submit a response for the disagreed discrepancies. Additionally, you need to reconcile the discrepancies in the ‘Dynamic Reconciliation Statement’.
• Once you have successfully submitted the revised return and response, click on ‘submit’. A success message stating, ‘Partially Agreed and Revised Return filed’ will be displayed on your screen.

Disagree:

You select this option when you disagree with the discrepancy analysis done by the Income Tax Department. To proceed further, you need to click on ‘Disagree’ and then select ‘Continue’.

• Proceeding further, you will get an opportunity to enter the responses in the text boxes placed against all the discrepancies. In the end, you need to reconcile the discrepancies in the ‘Dynamic Reconciliation Statement’.
• After you have submitted all the responses, click on ‘submit’. You will receive a success message confirming your submission.

Note: if you wish to see your responses, you can do so by clicking on the ‘view’ link under the ‘response’ column.

How to respond to intimations/notices other than PFA proceedings:

Follow the steps mentioned below to respond to notices other than PFA proceedings.

• Visit the Income Tax filing portal by clicking on the link mentioned: https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home
• Click on ‘Login Here’ under ‘Registered User’ located on the right side of the screen. Fill in your ‘user Id’ which is your PAN number along with the password and captcha code. After filing all the details, click on the ‘submit’ button.
• After logging in, select ‘e-Proceedings’ link from under the ‘e-Proceeding’ tab.
• You will be redirected to a new page and this new page will display all the notices you might have received. This page will contain detailed information about the notices which will include:
  1. your PAN,
  2. name of proceeding,
  3. the assessment year,
  4. status of the proceeding,
  5. limitation date of the proceeding,
  6. action date and closure date of the proceeding
• To view the proceeding details, click on the hyperlinks of the appropriate notices which is available under ‘proceeding name’ section
• With this hyperlink, you will be able to see additional proceeding details of that particular assessment year such as:
  1. Notice/Communication reference Id
  2. The section under which the notice is issued
  3. Detailed information about the notice
  4. Date of issue
  5. Date of serving the notice
  6. The due date for response
  7. Document Id
  8. Responses if any
• If you want to see the details of the notice issued, you need to click on ‘Notice/communication reference Id’. And if you wish to file a response against a particular notice, you can do so by clicking on ‘submit’ present under the ‘response’ section.
• Once you have clicked on ‘submit’, you will be re-directed to another page where you will find some fields pre-filled. These fields will be ‘Proceeding name’, ‘Notice section’, and ‘Document Reference Id’. Against a particular notice, you can select the ‘response type’ from the dropdown menu. You could opt for either ‘full response’ or ‘partial response’. Fill the response type or remarks. From the dropdown menu, select the ‘attachment description’ and upload the required documents in a PDF format.
• Once you have filed all the documents, click on ‘continue’ to move further.
• Your submitted responses can be e-Verified by either using a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) or by using the Electronic Verification Code (EVC)
• Once your response is submitted, you will receive a success message confirming your submission.

Points to remember while submitting the response:

• If you are submitting your response in installments, then you need to choose response type as ‘partial’.
• If the submissions are made in installments, then there would be multiple ‘partial responses’. And if you are submitting the last ‘partial response’, you need to update the ‘Response type’ to ‘Full response’ instead of ‘Partial response’.
• While submitting the ‘Remark/Response’, you need to keep in mind the character limit and that is 1000 characters.
• If you want to attach some documents and if the dropdown does not show ‘Attachment Description’, then choose ‘Others’ option. Under this option, fill in the name of the document aligning it with other values present in the drop down.
• Be careful about these two things while filing in the name of the attachment: you should not repeat the name of the file and do not exceed the character limit, i.e, 100 characters.
• While submitting a single response, you can attach a maximum of 10 PDF and the size of the PDFs should not exceed 5 MB. You can submit a ‘n’ number of responses to any single notice or intimation order.
• If the documents which need to be submitted exceeds 5 MB, then you need to split the document into various files. Name these files as ‘File name, 1’, ‘File name, 2’, ‘File name, 3’. For example, Statement 1, Statement 2, and Statement 3.
• If the number of files exceeds the limit after splitting the document, then you need to choose ‘Partial response’ from under ‘Response type’ to make multiple submissions.
• You can submit additional documents or responses even after opting for ‘full response’ during the last submission. But it is only possible if the ‘submit’ hyperlink is active against the proceeding option.