DIN( Document Identification Number) : Income Tax Department’s new trail towards digitalization
The tax filing season of 2020 will be witnessing certain commendable changes introduced by the income tax department of India. From now on, a system generated Document Identification Number (DIN) will be enforced for every notice issued by the income tax department. CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) had already circulated the notice regarding DIN in the third quarter of 2019. DIN will facilitate recorded communication between the taxpayers and the income tax department.
“When a notice is issued to an assessee with a claim, the notice will have to be issued with a document identification number (DIN). Unless there is a DIN, the assessee is well within his rights to consider the notice as not issued“, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.
This is even viewed by the masses as a new step of the Income Tax Department towards digitalization. Introduction of DIN facility will bring in beneficial transformations like:
- Improved transparency.
- Reduced processing time.
- Tax departments accountability towards taxplayers will boost.
There are five different kinds of intimation/notices which are issued by the Income tax department of the country.
- Intimation (Section 143{1})
- Notice (Section 143{2})
- Notice (Section 148)
- Notice(Section 245)
- Notice(Section 142{1})
For all the notices mentioned above, DIN is mandatory from 1st October 2019. Although, all communications were generated electronically on ITBR (Income Tax Business Applications) by the taxman; somehow there were instances where notices, orders, summons etc were handled manually. Such practices led to confusion and lack of transparency in the department as well as the taxpayers. With the introduction to DIN, it is believed that such practices can be brought down.
“CBDT also specifies exceptional circumstances where communication may be issued manually, only after recording reasons in writing & with prior written approval of Chief Commissioner/Director General of Income-Tax concerned,” tweeted by the Income Tax Department of India.
Exceptional situation could be when there are technical challenges in generating or allotting DIN. Another situation could be where the PAN of the assessee is not available. In such cases communication can be generated manually. However, CBDT has also given timelines and procedure by which manually generated communication can be regularised.
Moreover, all the manually generated notices of the past need to be identified and ratified before 31 October 2019.
According to the officials, the new system of DIN will help the taxpayers visit the income tax portal and verify the communication. In addition they can also track down the tax officers and analyse the notices issued to them.