e governance initiative

Journal of E-Governance 36 (2013) 125135 125DOI 10.3233/GOV-130348IOS Press

Articles

E-filing system for tax returns and forms:Landmark e-governance initiative by thegovernment of India

Harjit Singha, and Hardeep SinghbaAligarh Muslim University, IndiabDepartment of Computer Science and Engineering, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India

Abstract. This paper gives a brief history and overview of the e-Filing of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) in India and mentionssome benefits of the e-Filing system for different stakeholders. It provides objective information based on reviews of literatureand documents available on the e-Filing systems of different revenue authorities worldwide, especially the e-filing systems fortax related documents and forms. The paper explores the issues and shortcomings of the old e-Filing system of Tax returns inIndia, with respect to the expectations of the stakeholders from the system. It also tries to highlight the factors that may havecompelled the Government of India to take a decision for implementing the new e-Filing System of Tax. The paper explainsthe model/approach to execute the new e-Filing system in order to ensure that it gives a win-win outcome for all stakeholders(including the citizens of India). It explains why and how in this new system reliability and availability have been given primeimportance while highlighting the recommended features and facilities of the new system, and the expectations of the differentstakeholders. This paper also recommends that in future, the e-Return file upload type should be shifted to extensive BusinessReporting Language (XBRL) from current extensible Markup Language.

1. Introduction

Information and Communication Technology (ICT)is changing the way the society functions. Internet isone of the biggest revolutions in human history. Theimpact of ICT can be felt in all economic and socialactivities in a very conceivable manner. Governmentsworldwide are developing increased capabilities to de-liver services to the global Citizens. India, striving tobe the fulcrum of economic activities in the 21st cen-tury, is also working hard to keep pace with similarefforts. Citizens/other stake holders must be given thetype of services that make them feel as if they are op-erating from the comfort of their home. This can beachieved by automating all critical citizen centric pro-

Corresponding author: Harjit Sing, Aligarh Muslim University,India. E-mail: [email protected].

cesses. India is also working towards this to keep pacewith similar efforts. e-Filing system is one of the ex-ample in this direction.As per Income Tax Act 1961, filing of Income Tax

Returns in India is on self assessment bases [20]. TheIncome Tax Act has placed an obligation on Taxpayerto file the Income Tax Return. Receipt and process-ing of manual documents including returns has poseda significant challenge to the Department in terms ofmeeting the expectations of taxpayers with respect toturnaround times as well the expectations of receipt ofcomprehensive and accurate taxpayer data by assess-ing officers.The Department has deployed a portal [10] to fa-

cilitate stake holders (Citizens, Professionals, Busi-nesses, Corporate, ERIs and Others) to file Tax Re-turns through electronic mode. Electronic filing of In-come Tax Returns over the internet was introduced by

ISSN 1878-7673/13/$27.50 c 2013 IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

126 H. Singh and H. Singh / E-filing system for tax returns and forms

the Department from 2006. Filing of Income Tax Re-turns electronically with Digital Signature Certificate(DSC) is mandatory for all company (who is requiredto furnish the return) or for a firm/individual, whoseaccounts are required to be audited u/s 44AB of IT Act.With effect from 01st April 2012 (From the Assess-ment Year 201213) onwards, e-Filing is compulsoryfor an individual if total annual income exceeded INROne Million. This limit has further been decreased toHalf Million effective 01 April 2013. However, digi-tal signature is not mandatory in these cases for filingtax return. For all other category of Taxpayers e-Filingof Income Tax Return is Voluntary/Optional (with orwithout DSC) i.e. these Taxpayers have option to fileIncome Tax Return with the department in paper formin concerned Income Tax office. Taxpayers, for whomDSC is not mandatory, file the return electronically(without digital signature), and thereafter submit (bypost) verification of the return in a form named asITR-V. The e-Filing system of Income Tax Returns hasgiven a lot of other benefits to all stakeholders. Someof these benefits being experienced (but not limited to)are like: Saving of time as data already available inelectronic form for further processing Saving on dataentry effort and cost for department, Saves issues upof record keeping and requirement of physical space,Interface between the Income Tax Department and theTaxpayer is reduced, Accuracy of data is almost en-sured (as data is entered by the users). Departmentsinitiative of providing e-Filing facility is one of thesteps to achieve the e-Governance objectives. Ratherthan forcing the citizens and business community tocome to offices, more and more services are now beingprovided at the place of their choice, be it their homesor offices. It creates a Virtual Office (VO) for electron-ically delivering services at place and time convenientto all.

2. Literature review

There are different prospective/versions/definitionsof e-Governance being mentioned by different authors.However, the one which gives some depth [19] is e-Governance can be defined as the application of elec-tronic means in the interaction between governmentto citizens and government to businesses, as well asin internal government operations to simplify and im-prove democratic, government and business aspects ofgovernance. But, e-Governance is not just about im-proving delivery of services to citizens, businesses and

government employees. It is also about blending Infor-mation and Communications Technology (ICT) withadministrative reforms to make government more ef-ficient, drive down costs and increase transparency inhow government departments work. It also says thatif e-Governance is implemented properly, it can be anasset for the un-served and under-served areas in In-dia and help drive new levels of efficiency to govern-ment services in India. A paper on e-Government inIndia [16] tells that e-Government Public administra-tion, governed by bureaucratic structures built on ra-tionale principles that dominated the twentieth century,has failed to respond to the changing requirements ofthe present times. e-Governance, which is a paradigmshift over the traditional approaches in public admin-istration, is rendering of government services and in-formation to the public using electronic means. Thisnew paradigm has brought about a revolution in thequality of service delivered to the citizens. It has ush-ered in transparency in the governing process, sav-ing of time, simplification of procedures, better of-fice management, better record management and im-proved attitude & job handling capacity of the deal-ing personnel. The present study substantiates thesetheoretical assumptions about e-Governance by ana-lyzing some experiences at the local, state and fed-eral levels of government in India. This also coversScope of e-Government, e-Government Initiatives inIndia (including at the State Level) and Challengesfor e-Government in India. Similar, there is a whitepaper [19] recommending ways and policies for e-Governance scenario in India. This white paper looksat key determinants for improving governance throughe-Governance in India. It seeks to analyze limiting fac-tors and impediments in the way of proliferating e-Governance in India. From an IT spend perspective one-Governance, it looks at trends in other countries andcompares the per capita spend in India, which is verylow with those of other countries. IT initiatives in thegovernment in India have largely been on a piecemealbasis characterized by a lack of vision that has limitedthe resultant benefits. The use of innovative Public Pri-vate Partnership models has also been very limited. Itsuggests a holistic approach based on innovative part-nership models. In addition it makes some suggestionsfor maximizing both, adoption of e-Governance andchanging the institutional framework for managing e-Governance.Different versions to explain e-Filing and its usage

in different e-Governance initiates are available. Onesuch study [7] covers points like What is e-Filing, How

H. Singh and H. Singh / E-filing system for tax returns and forms 127

does it Work, dramatic impact of e-Filing, What is theAdoption Trend Line? e-Filing in the State and FederalCourt Systems, Retrieval of Information from Paper-Based Record Systems linked to e-Filing, IncreasedDemand for Direct Interaction between Citizens andGovernment Entities, Potential Increased Access byClaimants and Plaintiffs to Governmental agencies andthe Courts, Increased Self-Service Capacity and Trans-parency of Operations. It concludes that e-Filing sys-tem is not about simply making it possible to transmitinformation electronically. It is about a change in thebasic infrastructure used by citizens and the govern-ment to deal with one another.There are few papers/documents available on related

to e-Filing systems for taxation, but there is no in-depthresearch study/paper available related to e-Filing sys-tem of Tax related returns/forms in Indian context. Onepaper reviewed in this area [14] has a done a superficialand very limited study. It tries to tell about the growth(in percentage terms only) for e-Filing of income Taxreturns. However, our research threw many facts whichconfirmed that the facts and data/statistics contained inthis paper are incorrect and incomplete. Another resent(Oct 2012) study [8] was done on Indian e-Filing sys-tem, but with a very limited and narrow scope, whichjust covered taxpayers under category as Individualusing e-Filing system in a city in southern region ofIndia. Although, this paper shows different perspectiveof satisfaction level among these users for e-Filing sys-tem, however, this study lacks coverage, like other cat-egories of return filers and other regions/cities of In-dia. This study says that the existing users are satisfiedwith the e-filing facilities but most of the individual taxpayers are not awareness of the e-filing and e-paymentprocedures so sufficient steps are required to createmore awareness in the minds of tax payers regardinge-filing of income tax. One study on factors influenc-ing acceptance of E-Government Services in India cov-ered eFiling of Income Tax Returns in India [12] ascase for study. This was based on Unified Theory ofAcceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), how-ever the problem statement saying that only 10% ofthe Income Tax Returns are being filed as eFiled (FY200809) is not relevant today. Another study on sim-ilar subject was done [18] with aim to investigate thelikely antecedents of young Indian professionals be-havioural intention (BI) to use the income tax e-filingservice showed that antecedents of young Indian pro-fessionals BI to use the income tax e-filing serviceare: perceived ease-of-use, personal innovativeness ininformation technology, relative advantage (RA), per-

formance of e-filing service, and compatibility. How-ever this is also an old study (submitted in 2008). A lothas changed in the e-Filing system of Income Tax Re-turns in India. Today more that 50% of the income taxreturns filed are through e-Filing system. So the rele-vance of these two studies is no longer applicable tothe current e-Filing system of Income Tax Returns inIndia.Study done on Finland Tax Return Filing On-

line [13] is in different context. The purpose of thiscase study was to investigate which factors affect dif-fusion of tax return filing online (e-return) in Finland.Another aim was to develop an adoption forecast forthe service. Finally, customer categorization was sug-gested in order to enable e-return deliver more pub-lic value by accommodating the needs of different cus-tomer groups. Diffusion of Innovations theory, BassDiffusion Model and Service Process Analysis wereused as theoretical base for the study. For user of e-Filing system of returns, satisfaction survey conductedby Finnish Tax Administration was used for statisti-cal analysis and mathematical modelling. In addition,e-return in Finland was benchmarked against leadingpractices from Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands.Based on the analysis, the recommendations weregiven for improving the e-return service in Finland.The recommendations can be split into two groups:recommendations aiming at increasing the attractive-ness of e-return for potential adopters (e.g. introduc-tion of instant tax assessment feature online), and rec-ommendations meant to discourage people from sub-mitting tax return in paper (e.g. paper form serviceprocessing fee). A study of the e-Filing System onMalaysian Taxpayers [5] covers how e-Filing systemfor taxpayers is an important e-government service inMalaysia. This paper investigates the factors that leadto the acceptance of e-Filing among taxpayers by us-ing Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). This studyproposes a model consisting of three constructs, whichare perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use andperceived risk. The model proposed by this study is asimpler model compared to other studies on e-Filingsystems. The confirmatory factor analysis shows thatthe model is an adequate fit and the perceived riskconstruct has a negative association with the perceivedusefulness construct. However, there is no significantassociation between the perceived risk and perceivedease of use constructs. Another study [1] on Issuesin e-Filing System, confirms that the emerging of afast delivery service required a faster mechanism oftransaction between government and its people. How-


ever, it is equally associated with some ground issues.The primary issues addresses by this paper were therelationships between the perceived: security tighten-ing, facilitating conditions, usefulness, eases of usinge-Filing system and users retention. The second is-sue addresses by the paper is the differences in gen-der of the users with respect to factors that influencetheir state of retention. The findings of the study show astrong relationship between the predicting factors andusers intention to continuing using the e-Filing sys-tem. The findings also show that the retention of usersis highly affected by the differences in the gender of theusers. In addition, the paper highlights some potentialimplications of the findings necessary for policy mak-ers to achieve a successful e-Filing system in the coun-try. As reflected in the findings, it is imperative for allagencies staff charged with e-government policy im-plementations to equip themselves with more sophisti-cated ICT tools to guide the users. The fact is that thegaps in IT infrastructure can affect peoples retention tocontinue using the system provided by the government.Above all, the findings show that users must perceivethe technology somehow useful, easy and friendly aswell as security guaranteed. Finally, the paper sug-gests that more IT infrastructures and other incentivesshould be provided to encourage the public to use thesystem and effective capacity building program for theagencys staff that can help facilitate readiness of thepeople to use the system, if e-Filing is to become a suc-cessful policy program. Thus, the agencys staff mustplay effective roles to respond to the public perceptualcomplaints about the e-Filing system and governmentmust pay attention to gender differences in their reten-tion to continue using the system. A similar study [3]tried to go deep on perceived risk to the adoption ofe-filing. It is predicted that many of these risk facetswill be significant. Among the risks that could possi-bly be significant are performance risks, psychologi-cal risks, time risks and privacy risks. It says that riskreducing strategies could be formulated to encouragee-Filing adoption such as improved security featuresfor the user interface. It stresses that strategies to re-duce risks should consider the type/category of the sys-tem users like Corporate, Intermediaries and Individu-als (with different capabilities of internet adoption).The result of a different survey [21] conducted on

e-Filing in US has shown that majority of Americansare comfortable with e-Filing. In fact the acceptance ofe-Fili ng has given rise to an increased comfort withwebsite tax preparation and it seems that Americanshave shifted more swiftly than expected to the e-Filing

system. Also the same level of comfort is shown in re-ceiving their refunds electronically. Not surprisingly,younger Americans in particular are more likely to e-File their tax returns and receive refunds electronicallythan citizens aged 65 or older. The study also foundthat men are much more willing than women to use theInternet for tax preparation and e-Filing their tax re-turns. An article [2] on individual UK taxpayers aimedto review the attitudes to information and communi-cations technology (ICT) adoption between taxpayers,tax agents and government departments. The resultsconfirm that small/medium sized tax agent firms aremore likely to be technology enthusiasts/early adoptersof e-filing for their individual clients. As their busi-nesses are more likely to be driven by technologysavvy population, they have fewer issues with the in-complete e-filing system available at the early stagesof its roll out and were more motivated by the visiblebenefits available from adopting e-filing. Larger firmshave been slower and appeared more reluctant. As e-Filing system is an integral part of e-Government.

3. Research methodology

Research Methodology used for this study is basedon sampling technique. The details are as:

Sample study was done by the author on someof the established Portals of Revenue Authorities/Agencies of developed countries like AustralianTaxationOffice [4], Internal Revenue Service (IRS)of US [11] and Canadian Revenue Agency [6],for type of facilities/functionalities provided by e-Filing systems of developed countries to their citi-zens (and stakeholders) for electronic filing of TaxReturns. Also, analysis of other e-Governance por-tals of India [15] to study how the standards arebeing followed as per Government of India guide-lines: MCA21 (for Ministry of Corporate Affairs,Government of India).

Data Collection and Analysis: Target samples (dif-ferent stakeholders), method and purpose of their in-clusion in sample are explained as: Discussions with Client team on all aspects of re-quirements for new system.

Survey for individual users (citizens) for inclusionof their expectations in the recommended solution Discussion with different user groups (throughworkshops) for their pain areas of the ex-isting e-Filing system and their expectations/


suggestions on the new system. These groupsare: Individual users (salaried, self-employed,professional and businessmen, partners of firmsand Directors of companies).

Response from their experience of old sys-tem and expectations from new system werecollected from around 100 respondents th-rough questionnaire having multiple choicequestions, ratings (1 to 5 scale) based ques-tions and subjective questions, coveringwidescope in about 25 questions. This was basedon the proven concept (especially in us-ability area) that in these type of surveysfeedback from 3 to 4 participants in eachcategory/subgroup is sufficient to know theviews of the complete user group.

Detailed analysis was done for this data col-lected to categorise the findings.

Similar discussions with Chartered Accoun-tants and Tax Lawyers (who file returns on be-half of other businesses and individuals)

Feedback discussions with Electronic ReturnIntermediaries (ERIs): Third party utility prov-iders and Bulk Filers like Taxsmile and Sko-rydov Systems

Brainstorming sessions by the teams of the Ser-vice Provider working on this project.

Facts recorded by the author of this researchpaper as part of his experience of workingon different e-Governance projects, especiallywith Direct Taxes Department of India.

Detailed study and analysis of the old e-Filingsystem

4. Research findings

Easy availability of returns is ensured for process-ing, easily access and use of data for future returns bythe users and status of the processing of tax returnsand refunds is shown online. The fast paced globaliza-tion of the economy and rapidly increasing tax base isadding to the work load of the department. Faster pro-cessing of IT Returns filed electronically with respectto processing of paper returns (filed in the offices ofthe department) is being managed by the departments,because of inbuilt benefits of e-Filing and dedicatedITR processing facility at Bangalore for electronicallyfiled IT Returns. Due to this new dedicated facility,citizens are receiving their tax refunds hassle-free, in-

cluding in most cases, directly into their bank accounts.This lead to transparent way of functioning and leadto more citizens overall satisfaction. Although depart-ment has not given the due attentions towards increas-ing the awareness (including the benefits) of e-Filingsystem among citizens. Still a large number of usersare volunteer/optional users. Today more than 80% ofe-Filing of IT returns in India is voluntary and 32%of IT Returns are being filed outside office hours. Thesuccess of this can be observed from the data [10]as the number of returns filed electronically has risenfrom around half a million in FY 200607 to 21.4 mil-lion in FY 201213, which now covers about 60% ofthe total Income Tax Returns being filed in India. Therecorded average growth of e-Filing of IT Returns ismore that 100% year-on-year and much more than theanticipated growth by the Income Tax department. Theold e-Filing system was not planned for this much loadand used to have many type of problems in every peaksession (near statutory end dates) of the return filing.During the study for this paper, it is also observed

that in India, most government ministries and depart-ments (central as well as state level) have so far fol-lowed a commodity-based approach while finding so-lutions to their ICT requirements. This approach iscounterproductive and many times turn out to be moreexpensive in the long-run. Till now, the in-house ITdepartments of various government departments havefollowed the practice of purchasing hardware, soft-ware, services and networks from multiple vendors.Over the years, this practice has left government de-partments with IT systems, standards and technolo-gies that cannot interface with each other. Conse-quently this proves to be an obstruction to intra andinter departmental information sharing and collabora-tion. So, what is required in Indias government sectoris a strategic shift from the commodity based IT ap-proach to a mature solution/services based approach.The viewpoint is mentioned in one of the white pa-per [19] on e-Governance in India.Like concept/model generally being adopted by dif-

ferent Government departments in India for executionof ICT systems, earlier e-Filing system was also basedon similar concept. The system was owned by the De-partment and was being executed as a group of mul-tiple vendors, each reporting directly to a designatedteam of department officers. Although all vendors areexperts in their own area, however there are many otherconstraints/challenges in this type of execution modellike coordination among different vendor partners is abig problem. Many times very small problems/issues


caught into blame game among them. The contract pe-riods do not map to each other, including changingof different vendors at different times. These, coupledwith other inherited shortcomings of this system havemany challenges and issues for the stakeholders (espe-cially for the department), like: System environment components (like servers,network equipment and storage) have been de-clared obsolete by respective Original EquipmentManufacturers (OEMs).

Missing redundancies during failure of any com-ponent of the system (single point of failure).

Very limited technical staff with the department.These days, external and internal Security threats

(especially on Government portals in India with sensi-tive information) have increased many times. There istrend on the rise in the use of the sophisticated and ad-vance technology by the hackers for these attacks. Theprotection of information from these attacks is nowthe prime focus for the e-Governance projects. Specialagencies like CERT-in has been established by GOI forthis purpose only. This system being one of the im-portant public system of GOI and contains very sensi-tive information. Hence, comprehensive e-Security isnow the prime focus area for this new system to han-dle. Government departments in India are generally nottechnically equipped to take case of this.Many recent actions by the finance ministry to en-

hance the overall tax base would increase the total ITreturns being filed. Realizing the potential of e-Filing,department wants that many of the tax payers who filepaper IT returns shift to e-Filing of IT returns. In thisstudy, it is evident that addition of tax returns is in theage bracket of 25 to 30 years. Most of our young gen-eration is tech savvy and would like to file tax returnusing internet (i.e. e-Filing system). With all these fac-tors, the expectations indicated that the total number ofe-Filing of IT returns would increase more rapidly innext 5 years than the past. This study has also shownthat taxpayers tend to e-file near the tax deadline andthis may lead to problem of system response if thee-filing system is not tailored to accommodate this.Department is a leading organization in implementa-tion of Information Technology and pioneer in manyconcepts of e-Governance in India. Department wishesto exemplify a technology driven transformation andbring in a paradigm shift in the way stake holdersinteract with department for their all the Tax relatedservices. Department wants a system which is Stateof the Art and best in its class. Also, for quite sometime now, with widespread awareness of Information

and Communication Technology (ICT), its benefits andpenetration of Internet, the usage of on-line systemshas increased tremendously (Anywhere-Anytime con-cept), this department too has experienced huge in-crease in volumes of filing of Income Tax Returns elec-tronically resulting in tax filers database increasing dayby day. The convergence of all forms of communica-tions (especially revolution in the mobile handsets Smartphone/Tablet Computer) on the digital playfieldis opening up immense new possibilities of achievingspeed, versatility and space-time independence.

5. Solution and execution model

The main feature of the model adopted in the newe-Filing System is based on the Government of IndiasPPP initiative of Service Delivery model. In technicalteams is known as DBFOMT (Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain-Transfer)model. In general is calleda BOOT project, where the Service Provider has in-vested and department will pay regularly based onthe number of transaction (i.e. number of successfulsubmissions of different e-Returns by the users). Thewhole infrastructure and services would be owned andhandled by the IT Partner.Being a citizen centric system, reliability and avail-

ability of the system has been given prime importance.Two levels of redundancies have been designed as inPrimary Data Centre, servers of each layer (viz. Web,Application and Database) to be implemented in LoadBalanced Active-Active Cluster mode (minimum twoservers in each layer). Additional Data Centre (Dis-aster Recovery site) with 100% capacity (w.r.t. Pri-mary Data Centre) in Active-Passive mode. It is a ro-bust system based on Stringent Services Levels forall services and system response times. The designshould stress on secure, platform agnostic and scal-able e-Filing system. Spectrum of Tax Payers Profileis Taxpayers having no knowledge of technology andtax laws as one side and Taxpayerswith enhanced tech-nical skills and knowledge of tax laws on the otherside. The system should ensure that all types of Tax-payers should come forward for e-Filing of Tax Re-turns. These days the complexity to operate the newgenerationMobile phones (Smart phones), without anyformal training virtually all type of users are efficientlyusing them and very satisfied. Reason is known, userfriendliness in terms of GUI features and navigations.Same logic should work for the portals/websites. Takehelp from the experts from internet sites like: Guide-


Fig. 1. Steps for e-Filing of Tax return. (Colours are visible in the online version of the article; http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/GOV-130348)

Fig. 2. Remote Management Facility and Network redundancy. (Colours are visible in the online version of the article; http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/GOV-130348)

lines for government web designers to learn how tomake websites more usable, useful, and accessible [9].The site addresses a broad range of factors that gointo web design and development. Similarly help fromNielsen Norman Group [17], Evidence-Based UserExperience Research, Training, and Consulting.To access the e-Filing application and to avail ser-

vices, the user has to register. External users are end-users who avail the e-Filing facilities for submissionof returns and/or forms, query on PAN details, andsubmit information needed for ITD, raise issues, con-cerns and grievances, if any. They include Individuals,Authorized Representative (CA), Corporate, Interme-

diaries and External agency like Third Party Report-ing Agency, Bank, Government Department, FinancialInstitution and Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) returnfilers. External users accessing the e-Filing Applica-tion through internet can Register, Login and get ac-cess or authenticated, Edit or change profile, Downloadoffline returns/forms, open online returns/forms, Up-load details in the returns/forms, attach DSC (if avail-able), View allowed information, Can raise grievancesand/or contact the helpdesk for queries related to e-Filing. Figure 1 shows that if steps are followed prop-erly, how much simple is this process.It was envisaged that all statutory submissions of


Fig. 3. User Workflow in the e-Fining system.

forms by different Taxpayers (other than ITRs) shouldultimately be facilitated through e-Filing system. Mostimportant of these would be the e-Filing of Tax De-duction at Source (TDS) statements to be filed by TaxDetectors and e-Filing of Annual Information Report(AIR) by the relevant agencies (as designated by theGovernment). Also, considering that in most of thecases, either the information provided by the citizens(like PAN, Address and Bank Account etc) as new in-formation is same (as provided last time and existswithin the system) or can be used as base for genera-tion of new system. It was also advised that Pre-filledforms with earlier information should be available asan option to the users. Further, since the latest advancetax and TDS information is already available with thesystem, it is being recommended that with an optionwhile filling the ITRs, this information should also beable to be exported to the ITRs (linked to PAN and As-sessment Year), this concept will be new for any tax re-turn eFiling systems. The new system is also proposedto be ready for alert and notification in future. It will beintegrated with mobile service delivery gateway which

would enable the taxpayers to enquire about status ofany service request pending with Income Tax Depart-ment.Remote management facility connecting PDC via

two different leased lines on separate routers even fromtwo different service providers. Facility has a set offirewall with IPS features filter the traffic in and outdirection via security policies. High level connectivitydiagram between Primary Data Centre, Business Con-tinuity Plan site (Disaster Recovery site) and e-FilingFacility is shown as Fig. 2.Each type of user is navigated through a particu-

lar process flow. Figure 3, explains the how each typeof user follows a particular workflow/process flow de-signed for that type. The ITD E-Filing Portal is beingdesigned as the primary mechanism for delivering ser-vices to Taxpayer (Individual/Corporate) and internalusers. Design and Development follow the modular ap-proach to ensure easier enhancement of portal servicesas well as ensure access controls by clearly segregatingUser Interface from e-Filing Service Engine. Compre-hensive e-Security is now the prime focus area (stating


Fig. 4. Home page of the old e-Filing Application. (Colours are visible in the online version of the article; http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/GOV-130348)

Fig. 5. Home page of the new e-Filing Application. (Colours are visible in the online version of the article; http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/GOV-130348)

from in-build design of the Application) for this newsystem. UI Design of Home Page (Old Application)is shown in Fig. 4 and the UI Design of Main (Homepage) Screens as envisaged is shown in Fig. 5. One canclearly notice the dramatic change for the good in thenew home page. Problems of the existing portal (somementioned below) has been handled in new portal

Navigation is not proper. There are 2 downloadoptions present on the homepage and each opensa different page with different content. This con-fuses user.

Big vertical scroll on home page due to which therelevant content is not visible above the fold.

The news and updates section although present is


not clearly visible. Proper demarcation required. Not compliant to Indian web guidelines.Once the system is fully functional and stabilized,

considering overall benefits, the e-Return file uploadtype should be shifted to extensive Business Re-porting Language (XBRL) from current extensiveMarkup Language (XML). Also, considering the con-straints and hassles of the ITR-V process faced byall stakeholders, the concepts of e-Signature and OneTime Password (OTP) should be explored for imple-mentation as part of this system.It is also recommended that department should have

a single face to the public/Taxpayers. All other por-tals (or web sites) maintained by the department shouldmerged with this system. This will not only save costand effort due to duplicity, but also take away the con-fusion among users created by different portals of thesame department.

6. Conclusion

There was no other way but to go for a new state ofthe art e-Filing system. The best model required herewas that enables government to concentrate on coremission critical value-adding activities while shiftingthe technology related activities to professional part-ners. In other words, it can focus its attention on whatit does best and use its IT partners to deliver whatit is experienced at delivering. Also, a further bene-fit expected if government somehow saves on upfrontinvestment in bulk (CapEx). The main feature of themodel adopted in the new e-Filing System is Govern-ment of Indias PPP initiative based Services DeliveryModel and the complete infrastructure/services of thesystem would be owned and handled/maintained by theIT partner.Being a citizen centric system, reliability and avail-

ability has been given prime importance. Two levels ofredundancies have been designed as in Primary DataCentre, servers of each layer (viz. Web, Applicationand Database) to be implemented in Load BalancedActive-Active Cluster mode (minimum two servers ineach layer). Additional Data Centre (DR site) with100% capacity (w.r.t. Primary Data Centre) in Active-Passive mode. It would be a robust IT system basedon Stringent Services Levels for all services and sys-tem response times. The design should stress on se-cure, platform agnostic and scalable e-Filing system.The facility should be there for dedicated Call Centreservices. It should be a one-stop shop for the users.

Worldwide use of social networking sites and othertrends in the internet can also be exploited for Train-ing and awareness of citizens like Detailed demo filmavailable on YouTube to show how to use different fa-cilities of e-Filing system. System before implementa-tion should take case of the Shortcoming/issues high-lighted for existing system in the above section. Con-sidering the trend in mobile world, further we shouldconsider to provide this system through mobile appli-cations.

References

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[21] H.D. Vest,Majority of Americans Comfortable With E-Filing,The Free Library, 22 March 2000. Accessed online at: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Majority of Americans ComfortableWith E-Filing According to New...-a060499322.

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