Disappointment with IT Portal 2- even in first step of authentication of document.

[DEV KUMAR KOTHARI]

Disappointment with IT Portal 2- even in first step of authentication of document.

The honourable Finance Minister and

The CMD and concerned team for IT Portal 2 for GOI

M/s. Infosys Ltd

Sirs,

Highly disappointing is working of Infosys so far it concerns latest IT portal 2. There are many difficulties being faced in working with it.

The old discontinued website was doing well and had successfully faced amendments and consequently changed ITR forms year after year for a long period of time.

Then why it was proposed to make a new website at huge cost which is met from  hard earned money of taxpayers? There seems no logic and rationale, except doing a change just for sake of change.

Authentication of documents:

Authentication of documents is, in my personal view first step which any assesse or tax consultant must take. This is because if a notice fails in authentication, the entire proceeding may be null and void. Authentication with specific search with PAN of assesse, Assessment year, type of document, date of issue is an important facility to the assesse to examine perfect authenticity of document issued by IT Department.

Mobile phone number and OTP are not necessary for authentication of documents

In old version there was no requirement of entering mobile number, seeking OTP and entering OTP etc. in course of authentication of documents issued by IT Department.  In fact it is not necessary because no one will try to search documents un- necessarily.  Only a person knowing details of notice can make a search. Furthermore, search can be made with any mobile number and not only registered mobile number. So there is hardly any issue of privacy.

Therefore, mobile number and OTP   can be avoided in new portal also because this is un-necessary and cause delay in search and result and also increase costs of telecommunication services for the IT Department and who knows, in future OTP recipient may also be charged some costs as we had to pay for incoming calls in initial years of mobile phone..

Problems in course of authentication of document issued by IT department:

For example, I am giving you problems faced  even in course of authentication of documents.      

  Problems in authentication:

Entry of 0

While data entry 0 could not be entered from NUM board, has to enter from other number key of 0. However while entering OTP 0 could be entered from NUM key board also. This means that there seems no defect in key board. This may be defect in the field for data entry for authentication with DIN.

 While entering DIN  , DIN copied from notice could not be pasted. In earlier version we could copy and paste PAN, DIN, date etc. from notices/ orders etc. This facility must be made available in new portal also for ease of convenience.

Mark of minus / hyphen ie.     –      between 2021-22 could not be entered from NUM key board and also other part of key board. May be due to this DIN was wrong.  Therefore,  search result should be DIN entered is wrong. However, on search result is  that   document is not found in result, there is no error message as to DIN is wrong ( due to lack of  - between 2021-22).

This means there is some mistake in portal causing difficulty in data entry and in giving  undesired and wrong result of search.

For example see screen shots for search page and result page:

 

In search with specific details result  about  DIN is given as follows:

Assessee and document specific search:

As can be seen in result with such search we find that result is very vague and generalised.

In search PAN, year , type and date of document  the result there is no reference of assessee or his PAN. In result, at least, it should be stated that notice has been issued for PAN …….. Otherwise the result is very much generalized and vague.

In fact best course will be that in search with PAN, AY, Date, type the first page of document can be provided so that complete details of document is found in search to display authentication  result completely and  beyond any doubt.

With DIN ,tried Again on 05.07.21, same problems of data entry for 0  and  -  took place so  result is similar