Income Tax Dept saves Rs. 977.5 Crore on Postage Cost

Income Tax Dept - Taxscan

The Income Tax department has saved Rs 977.5 crore on postage cost since 2013 as it started sending emails instead of postal. While confirming the estimates, the Finance Ministry said that the number of emails the department sent to taxpayers in April-December 2017 was more than two times the number in 2013-’14.

The department sent 14.15 crore emails to taxpayers from April to December 2017, as compared with 59.3 lakh in 2010-’11, it said.

The number has grown steadily since 2011 and peaked at 23.2 crore emails in 2015-’16, i.e, the year in which the department introduced paperless assessment in India.

The ministry made the estimate of the savings in postage cost by assuming an average cost of Rs 15 per communication sent by speed post or ordinary post.

Till date, the Central Processing Centre (CPC) for Income Tax returns in Bengaluru has sent around 73.73 crores digitally signed intimations by email, around 67.96 crore SMS alerts and around 4.17 crore intimations by speed post across the country, the Finance Ministry data showed.

From last few years, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex direct tax body, is focusing on electronic communication to make tax compliance more simple and easier.

The CPC also enabled a web-based taxpayer grievance mechanism in the last financial year, under which taxpayers can log in to the e-filing web portal and submit their grievances online.

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