Par panel flays I-T dept for under-utilisation of IT system

Income Tax department has not been able to utilise key functions of various IT modules despite Rs 790 crore spent on computerisation, a Parliamentary panel has said.
"The Committee's examination of IT Application in Income Tax by the Ministry of Finance revealed that Rs 790 crore were spent on computerisation of the Department of Income Tax between 2006 to 2011, yet department had not utilised important
functionaries of various modules," the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by K V Thomas said in a report.
The panel further said the I-T department failed to make a
thorough and diligent assessment before choosing to commission the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) at Manesar and Pune to process the paper returns of the entire country.

"There was an inadequate response to tendering to projects of CPCs at Manesar and Pune due to increase in e-filing and consequent reduction in the volume on paper returns available for processing and consequently," it said.

The CPC at Bengaluru was set up in 2009 and designed to process e-filled Income Tax returns of the entire country and paper returns of Karnataka and Goa while CPC at Ghaziabad was set up to handle tax deducted at source (TDS) statements.
The panel pointed out that the matter of duplicate/multiple/invalid PAN cards being issued by the Income Tax department remains unresolved.
It suggested that the Income Tax department should explore the possibility of issuing PAN cards based on biometric datas.

The panel also said a National Economic Information Sharing System should be set up to establish a set up of data sharing standards with legal backing as well as enable data sharing among agencies such as Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and RBI.
It also suggested policy decision regarding linking e-banking with e-filing of ITR be expedited with a view of ensuring tax payment agility.