ITR e-filing Portal: In an attempt to make the process of income-tax filing process easier and hassle-free, the Income Tax department will launch a new web portal.

The Income Tax Department is set to launch a new ‘taxpayer friendly’ income tax filing portal on June 7 as the Central Board of Direct Taxes said earlier this month that the existing portal will be phased out after a ‘blackout period’ of six days beginning next month.

An IT Department communique on May 19 said the ‘transition’ from the old website – www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in – to the new – www.incometax.gov.in – will be completed and made operational from June 7. It further stated, “In preparation of this launch and for migration activities, the existing portal of the department www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in would not be available for a brief period (taxpayers as well as external stakeholders) of six days from June 1 to 6.”

Check out the features of the new income tax e-filing portal:

1) The new taxpayer-friendly portal shall be integrated with the immediate processing of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) to issue quick refunds to taxpayers

2) All interactions and uploads or pending actions will be displayed on a single dashboard for follow-up action by the taxpayer.

3) Free of cost ITR preparation software available offline and online with interactive questions to help taxpayers file ITR even without any tax knowledge, with pre-filling, for minimum data entry effort.

4) New call centre for taxpayer assistance for immediate answers to taxpayer queries with FAQs, Tutorials, Videos etc.

5) All major portal functions on the desktop will be available on the mobile app which will be enabled subsequently for full anytime access on a mobile network

6) A new online tax payment system on the new portal will be enabled subsequently with multiple new payment options using UPI, net banking, RTGS/NEFT, credit cards from any account of the taxpayer in any bank, for seamless and convenient payment of taxes.

Mean-while, The government on Thursday also extended I-T return filing deadline for 2020-21 for individuals till September 30 to ease taxpayer compliance burden amid the raging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has also extended the ITR filing deadline for companies by a month till November 30.