The Hindu : Front Page : Taxing times for taxpayers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 31, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Front Page

Front Page

Taxing times for taxpayers

Staff Reporter

Last date for filing Income Tax returns drawing to a close on Thursday
Over 7 lakh taxpayers are expected to file their returns in Delhi this year

– PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

TAXING TIMES: Long queues of taxpayers were the order of the day at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi on Wednesday where the Income Tax Department had set up special counters to accept tax returns.

NEW DELHI: With the last date for filing Income Tax returns drawing to a close on Thursday, long endless queues of taxpayers were witnessed on Wednesday at all the counters set up in the Capital by the authorities for salaried individuals as well as non-corporate taxpayers.

In all, over 7 lakh taxpayers are expected to file their returns in Delhi this year. While for the salaried individuals a special Income Tax camp has been organised at Pragati Maidan, for the non-corporate taxpayers the returns are being accepted at Vikas Bhawan. To help taxpayers submit their returns, 280 counters have been set in the city manned by over 1,300 officials of the department.

At Pragati Maidan, where about 5 lakh individual taxpayers are expected to file their returns, special arrangements have also been made for senior citizens and women taxpayers. But on Wednesday, a great many taxpayers had to wait for a long time to file their returns because of the rush. Many taxpayers complained that the facilities were inadequate. They said more counters should have been set up.

“The facilities for water and tea are fine, but the department should work towards reducing the turnaround time for those filing their returns so that they do not have to wait in long queues for hours,” said a much harassed taxpayer at Pragati Maidan on Thursday afternoon.

Likewise at Vikas Bhawan, of the nearly 2.5 lakh people who were expected to file their returns by Thursday, about 1 lakh had filed them by Wednesday evening and officials insisted that they were prepared for handling the last-day rush on Thursday when the counters would function for extra hours from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Returns through net

Though this time round the number of people expected to file their returns through the Internet is expected to be slightly higher at around 20,000 as against 10,500 last year, with most taxpayers still adopting the traditional route of filing returns manually it was a day of long wait for many under utterly hot and humid conditions at the counters.

Additional Commissioner of Income Tax Mona Mohanty said while about 45,000 returns had been filed at Vikas Bhawan on the first two days of the camp on Monday and Tuesday, about 50,000 more were filed on Wednesday. As such, about 1.5 lakh people are now expected to file their returns here on Thursday. To cater to them, 60 counters have been set up and a total of about 600 employees have been deployed.

In view of enhanced security considerations, Ms. Mohanty said taxpayers are being requested to come with minimum personal belongings.

She said special counters have also been set up for receiving applications for Permanent Account Numbers and a large number of Tax Return Preparers (TRPs), who are professionally trained to prepare returns, are helping assessees who find it difficult to fill up the returns on their own and are charging a nominal fee of Rs.250 per return for their services.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Front Page