Income Tax Grievance Scheme and Its Working Process

What is the Income Tax Department Grievance Scheme?

The Income Tax Department, to promote a paperless environment, launched Grievance, a special electronic system to fast-track taxpayer grievances and ensure early resolution or redressal of their complaints.

A separate and dedicated window for grievance redressal in the Income Tax Business Application (ITBA), from now on, this recently launched new smart electronic platform will now handle the regular operations of the department.

How Grievance Scheme Work?

The facility’s electronic solution, Grievance, will integrate all the online and physical complaints received by the department, which will further be monitored by the Assessing Officer of the case up to the supervisory officers.

The e-portal is also capable of ensuring the related section or domain of the tax department for the concerned grievances. And quickly transfer the issue to the concerned department, like for refunds and for other IT matters of an assessee.

As per the higher priority of this issue, the CBDT had also brought a new mechanism where top officers of the department receive a specific quota of complaints to monitor and track, from their origin to the successful resolution.

A senior IT official said about the Grievance, “The new system is called Unified Grievance Management System and is acronym Grievance. The system not only records the origin of the grievance on the electronic platform it works on, but it also keeps tracking it till it reaches its logical conclusion for final resolution.”

Through the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the electronic solution system Grievance came into existence a few months back. Mr Modi told the IT department to speed up the grievance resolution work, resulting in the IT department introducing Grievance.

For all such departments that also have a public interface, like the IT department, Mr Modi had also asked them to reduce this time duration from two months to 21 days. A new structure in the department to deal with these issues, called the Taxpayer Services Unit also created by the policy-making body of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

New Form Grievance From Income Tax Department

The Income Tax Department will be launching a new form, termed Grievance, under the ITR form to manage taxpayer grievances in the best possible way. The issues related to refunds and filings will be notified to the taxpayers via email and SMS.

Similar to the e-Income Tax Returns (ITRs) and other forms, the new form will be made public soon. It is the latest offering from the I-T department. The forms require the PAN number, email, and mobile number, along with the taxpayer’s name. This information is to be filled in by the user to receive hassle-free service from the department. The form also provides an area for mentioning grievances and other tax-related issues.

According to a senior official, “By using the new system, the taxpayer need not worry much and doesn’t have to visit the tax office as the system is made to ensure that time gets saved. The Grievance project is interconnected to the department database.”

There is a facility for filing the new form either online on the official e-filing website or manually at the Aaykar Sampark Kendra (ASK), which is located across 260 cities in the nation. Once the form is submitted successfully, the department releases a ‘Unique Grievance ID’ which can be used by the taxpayers to track their case.

Earlier this year, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the policy-developing entity of the Income Tax department, launched the unique Grievance module, which ensures fast resolution of taxpayer grievances. The department has also released a new logo for Grievance.

Current Procedure to Submit the Grievance in the Grievance Form

Grievance Submission – Without Login, The taxpayer can submit the grievance by following the steps below

• Step 1: Go to the ITR filing portal, then scroll down and under the ‘Contact US’ section, click on ‘Grievances’. 
• Step 2: Choose ‘I do not have a PAN/TAN’ and click on ‘Continue’
• Step 3: Enter the details such as Name, Email ID and Mobile Number and then Click On ‘Continue’.
• Step 4: Enter the One Time Password (OTP) which was received on the mobile number and Email ID entered in the above step and then click on the ‘Submit’.
• Step 5: Now submit the Grievance just like a registered user on the IT E-filing portal.

The status of the grievance can be reviewed in pre and post-login mode. 

Pre-login Mode

• Step 1: Go to the IT portal, scroll down under the ‘Contact US’ section, and click on the ‘View Grievance’. 
• Step 2: Now enter the Grievance Acknowledgement Number and mobile number used in e-filing the grievance and then click on ‘Continue’. 

Post-login mode

• Step 1: Go to the ITD portal and click on ‘Login ‘. 
• Step 2: After logging in, enter your User ID and Password.
• Step 3: On your dashboard section, go to ‘Grievances Menu ‘ -> ‘View Grievance Status’.
• Step 4: Check the Grievance status and you can also use the filter of date logged, department and status.

Grievance Submission – Post Login

The taxpayer can submit the grievance by following the steps below:-

• Step 1: Go to the income tax return filing portal and click on Login. 
• Step 2: On the login page, enter User ID & Password.
• Step 3: In the dashboard, go to ‘Grievances Menu’ -> ‘Submit Grievance’.
• Step 4: On the ‘Grievance’ page, choose the appropriate department. Alternatively, search the problem in the search box to submit a Grievance.
• Step 5: After selecting the suitable Department, select the type, applicable Act and Subcategory of the grievance from the dropdown menu and click ‘Continue’.
• Step 6: Enter the Additional details (AY/TY, etc.) based on the category of Grievance, write the grievance definition in the ‘grievance description’ box and upload the relevant documents and then click on ‘Submit Grievance’.
• Step 7: Now, the Grievance is submitted. Just note down the Grievance Acknowledgement Number to further review the status of the Grievance.

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