Torture under 'transparent taxation'

Everyone had believed that faceless assessments would end corruption

In August 2020, the prime minister announced three structural tax reforms under “transparent taxation” — faceless assessment, faceless appeal, and a taxpayers’ charter. On the ground, though, maddeningly complicated income-tax rules and laws, a broken online filing system, and malfunctioning faceless tax assessments have turned this slogan into a joke. It all starts with the torture of having to file everything online through a portal that is broken. According to chartered accountants (CAs), the website has issues from logging in to filing forms and even wrong refunds. A return filed and verified can appear as “unverified” later. In some cases,