Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 28, 2021 said that she wished the Infosys-developed website did not have such a launch but hoped issues will be sorted out soon. She said Infosys had done trial runs before the June 7 launch but users faced technical issues in accessing the portal. FM Sitharaman had on June 22 called a meeting with key officials of Infosys to review the issues on the portal. In the meeting, the ICAI members highlighted the issues faced by taxpayers and tax professionals on the portal.
The new income tax e-filing portal ‘www.incometax.gov.in’ had a bumpy start from the day of its launch on June 7 as it continued to face tech glitches. She further added that “Infosys is quite closely working with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the ministry and rapidly, at least from what I hear from chartered accountants and income tax professionals, there is definitely a lot of improvement”.
Infosys was in 2019 awarded a contract to develop the next-generation income tax filing system to reduce processing time for returns from 63 days to one day and expedite refunds. The government has so far paid Rs 164.5 crore to Infosys between January 2019 to June 2021 for developing the portal.
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New Income Tax Portal to Function Normally by First Week of August