New Delhi, dated 29th December 2009
Dear TRPs,
Let me first congratulate you for the good work that you all are doing for improving the level of awareness about tax laws amongst the marginal taxpayers, reducing their cost of compliance in preparation and submission of Income Tax Returns and improving the quality of taxpayer service available to them. The decision of the Government to enlarge the scope of the Scheme to include within its ambit, TDS Returns and Service Tax Returns is primarily aimed at providing a more meaningful self employment opportunity to all of you.
Recently, the Department has vide Notification No. 70/2009 dated 22nd September 2009 decided to include the TRPs as qualified e-Return Intermediary for filing of e-returns of eligible persons in accordance with the provisions of the Electronic Furnishing of Return of Income Scheme, 2007 (See Notification No. 210/2007 dated 27th July 2007). As per the notification dated 22nd September 2009, for working as an e-Return Intermediary the TRPs are required to fulfill certain more qualifications such as having at least class II digital signature from Certifying authorities, having in place security procedures to the satisfaction of e-Return Administrator to ensure confidentiality of the taxpayer’s information and having necessary archival, retrieval and security policy for the e-Returns filed through him. We have already placed on the TRP website the relevant notification concerning the provisions of the electronic return filing scheme (hereinafter referred to as “the Scheme”). I am highlighting certain provisions of the Scheme for your information.
Definitions
"e-Return Administrator" has been defined as an officer, not below the rank of the Commissioner of Income-tax, designated by the Board for the purpose of administration of the Scheme. The Board has designated DGIT(Systems) as the e-Return Administrator under the Scheme.
"Registrar" has been defined as a person appointed by the Board to act as a Registrar under the Scheme. NSDL has been appointed as Registrar under the Scheme.
"eligible person" means a person who has been allotted a permanent account number and who is required to furnish return of income or return of fringe benefits in Form ITR-1, Form ITR-2, Form ITR-3, Form ITR-4, Form ITR-5, Form ITR-6 or Form ITR-8. A firm or a company which, under the provisions of sub-rule (3) of Rule 12 of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, is required to furnish the return electronically under digital signature or transmit the data of the return electronically and thereafter to submit the verification of the return in Form ITR-V is also an eligible person for the purposes of the Scheme.
Authorisation of e-Return Intermediary
The following procedure has been specified for authorisation of e-Return Intermediary:
- A person qualifying to be appointed as an e-intermediary shall apply to the Registrar, along with such application fee, as may be decided by e-Return Administrator, from time to time. At present the application fees is Rs. 4412/- inclusive of 10.30% service tax.
- Upon receipt of the application, the Registrar shall verify that the application is complete and duly supported by necessary documents. In case of any defect in the application, the Registrar shall intimate the same to the applicant for removing the defects within the period specified in such intimation. Applications not satisfying the qualifications specified in the paragraph 5 of the notification shall not be processed further.
- In case of a valid application the Registrar shall carry out due diligence of the applicant and shall transmit the application and the 'due diligence' report online to the e-Return Administrator. Thereafter the e-Return Administrator may issue an appointment order along with the e-Return Intermediary Identification Number (ERIIN) and password to act as an e-Return intermediary.
- The appointment of the e- intermediary shall be valid for a period of two years and may be extended for a further period of two years.
Functions and responsibilities of e-intermediary
As per the Scheme, the e-Return Intermediary has to-
- ensure that the assessee is an eligible person under this scheme;
- ensure that the assessee has quoted a correct and valid permanent account number;
- ensure that the particulars of advance tax, self assessment tax and tax deducted at source are in accordance with the documents enclosed;
- ensure that the paper return of income has been properly filled in and duly verified by the assessee, and the enclosures required to be filed with the return of income are enclosed;
- ensure accuracy of the data entry while transcribing the return of income and during its transmission;
- ensure that the electronic portion of the return of income is transmitted on or before the due date for filing the return of income;
- ensure that the paper return Form-ITR-V is filed with the assessing officer having jurisdiction over the concerned assessee;
- retain for a period of one year from the end of the relevant assessment year the electronic data of the return of income and the information relating to the provisional receipts issued in respect of the returns filed through it;
- provide to the assessee a paper copy of the e-return submitted by e-intermediary and the acknowledgement receipt of Form ITR-V filed to the Assessing Officer;
- maintain confidentiality of the information that comes to his possession during the course of implementation of this scheme and shall not part with any such information to anyone, except with the prior permission of the assessee or the assessing officer;
- ensure that all his employees, agents, franchisees, etc., adhere to the provisions of the scheme;
- promptly inform the Registrar of any change in the particulars given in the application filed by it for registration;
- abide by the instructions issued by the e-Return Administrator, from time to time, for proper implementation of the scheme.
Procedure for filing of e-Returns
The following procedure shall be followed for filing e-Returns:
- The e-Return Intermediary shall receive the paper return of income, duly verified by the eligible person or shall prepare the return of income on the basis of the documents furnished by the eligible person, as the case may be. However, the TRPs acting as e-Return Intermediaries, shall only prepare return of income for eligible person as defined in the notification for the TRP Scheme issued vide S.O.2093(E) dated 28th November 2006.
- The intermediary shall upload the completed return of income, after validation of permanent account number, in the format specified by the e-Return Administrator, using his e-Return Intermediary Identification Number (ERIIN).
- The uploaded returns shall be accepted after necessary validations.
- In respect of each accepted e-return, a duly filled Form ITR-V shall be generated by the system as a provisional receipt which shall be transmitted to the intermediary.
- The intermediary shall deliver the acknowledgement receipt of the Form ITR-V to the concerned eligible person if the Form ITR-V is collected by him for submission to the Income-tax Department.
- The date of issue of the provisional receipt shall be deemed to be the date of filing of return of income if the Form ITR-V has been filed with the Assessing Officer within fifteen days from the date of issue of the provisional receipt. If the Form ITR-V is filed after fifteen days from the date of uploading the data then the date of filing the Form ITR-V will be the date of filing the return of income.
I hope that you all will make good use of this opportunity to expand your area of work by assisting eligible taxpayers in filing e-Returns. You may visit the NSDL website (https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/eri/Agreement.html) for further details regarding the Scheme. You are also welcome to contact the Resource Centre for further queries/ clarifications in this matter.
Wish you all the best.
Yours sincerely,
(Amitabh Kumar)
Head, Resource Centre