No Plan to Solve GST Scrutiny Via Faceless Assessment: Thakur

Anurag Singh Thakur, The Minister of State for Finance added that till date no proposal has been made for “faceless scrutiny assessment of GST returns” by the Government. The reason being, the clause of the Goods and Services tax rule already contains a provision for electronic filing and assessment. He further added that except for certain facts and circumstances, a total of 82,072 income tax assessment cases (till March 10) have been completed in a faceless manner.

Further, in response to a query on ‘whether the government is considering the scrutiny of GST assessments and some stages of investigations by SFIO in a faceless mode’, he said that, “No such proposal for scrutiny of GST assessment in a faceless mode is under consideration of the Government presently as the GST laws and rules The Union Budget 2021 proposed some amendments to the GST Act, and the effect started to reflect as the rules will become more stringent to allow input tax credit. read more made thereunder already provide for electronic filing and assessment of returns on the common portal. With regard to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the information is also nil”.

The minister said that faceless assessments have been commenced to encompass more transparency, efficiency, and accountability by adopting an approach of eliminating the interface between the Assessing Officer and assessee in the course of proceedings to the extent it is technologically feasible; consequently optimizing utilization of the resources by achieving economies of scale and introducing functional specialization and team-based assessment along with dynamic jurisdiction.

“An independent study to ascertain assessees’ experiences in a faceless manner is being conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) have a tripartite arrangement with NCAER for conducting this independent assessment of Faceless Assessment Scheme Know about the government’s newly introduced faceless income tax assessment for providing relief to the taxpayers. Also, check its benefits and working process. read more of the CBDT,” Thakur said.