By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 25, 2016: TO lend a tech-boost to the taxpayer services as part of direct tax reforms, the Union Finance Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, yesterday launched SMS Alert Service for about 2.5 crore private and Government salaried employees in order to directly inform them about the deposit of tax deducted at the end of every quarter.

The Union Finance Minister said that better facilities and services to the taxpayers are the central to Direct Tax Reforms. He said that the tax payers have a right to know the deductions made from their salary/income on regular basis. He said that more and more tax payer services have to be provided in order to make the people tax complaint. He stressed on the Government’s commitment towards continuously upgrading tax payer services.

The new step is an effort by the Income Tax Department to directly communicate deposit of tax deducted, through SMS alerts to salaried taxpayers, at the end of every quarter. In case of a mismatch, they can contact their deductor for necessary correction. Simultaneously, SMS alerts will also be sent to deductors who have either failed to deposit taxes deducted or to e-file their TDS returns by the due date.

The CBDT will soon extend this facility to another 4.4 crore non-salaried taxpayers. The frequency of SMS alerts will be increased, once the process for filing TDS returns is streamlined to receive such information on a real-time basis.

All taxpayers who wish to receive such SMS alerts are advised to update their mobile numbers in their e-filing account.