IT automation of Indian income tax processing
Theme: Delivering Excellence through Project Management
Author: Mr. Sreekanth Bachineni
Co-Authors: Manoj Velliyatt & Chandra Bijoy Singh
Sreekanth Bachineni
Manoj Velliyatt
Chandra Bijoy Singh
Keywords:
ITD – Income Tax Department
ITRCPC – Centralized Processing Center for Processing Income Tax Returns filed by citizens
TDSCPC – Centralized Processing Cell for Processing Tax Deducted At Source
Abstract:
Did you know, average IT return and TDS Statement processing used to take more than a year in the
past? With exceptional growth in tax returns, India’s Income Tax Department (ITD) anticipated difficulties
in processing by existing manual processes and embarked on automating entire direct tax processing
procedures. Infosys partnered with ITD in 2 core systems by setting up two Centralized Processing
Centers, one to process citizens’ e-filed returns at Bangalore; and other at Vaishali for TDS filings. These
systems integrated with ITD’s other systems for cohesive solution. This gigantic implementation is first of
its kind for Infosys to engage end-to-end business-transformation program with BOOT model where
Infosys had to venture into non-core business areas like physical facilities setup apart from codifying
entire Income Tax Act, which is considered as most complex legislative framework having 2500+ complex
business rules, to automate without any manual intervention. Meeting such unique, demanding
requirements, Infosys had to use multiple project management techniques. This ground-breaking program
enabled one of the most critical departments of the India, using state of the art technology, to redefine its
position globally, as India is one among few countries to take such initiative of this scale for processing
and reconciliation of direct tax functions. Result is average individual IT return processing reduced to 60
days, TDS processing to 5 days; and further ITD realizing huge financial benefits with demand reduction
and timely payment of taxes. This paper attempts to detail managing aspects of such massive and
country’s nation building program.
Table of Contents
Title of the Paper: ............................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
Theme: ........................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Keywords: .................................................................................................................................... 2
Abstract: ...................................................................................................................................... 2
Table of Cont ents ......................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 4
Details of the paper....................................................................................................................... 6
Executive Summary & Background ............................................................................................ 6
Business need of the program: .................................................................................................. 7
Objectives of the program: ......................................................................................................... 8
Scope, Scale & Complexity of the program: ................................................................................ 8
Solution Overview ..................................................................................................................... 9
Challenges of the program: ...................................................................................................... 11
Methodologies / Practices followed in the program: ................................................................... 14
Project Impact: Key benefits of the program: ............................................................................. 18
Conclusion: ................................................................................................................................ 20
Accolades .............................................................................................................................. 20
Way Forward: ......................................................................................................................... 22
Referenc es:................................................................................................................................ 22
Introduction
Till pre globalization of Indian economy, Income Tax processing in India was being processed in
decentralized manner mostly either manually or on stand-alone applications. But post Govt. took
economic reforms to make Indian business globalized; the business and economic growth rate has been
steep since then and with that, number of tax payers have been increased at the same rate. It increased
workload for ITD and with reduced manpower, it was challenging to meet such growth in processing of IT
return and TDS Statements.
To embrace this growth and to address difficulties in meeting the tax processing demands, the Income
Tax Department (ITD) decide to automate their filing processing by embracing the Information
Technology. As part of this initiative, ITD partnered with Infosys to establish Centralized Processing
Centers (CPC), one for processing citizens’ e-filed returns; and other for processing Tax Deducted at
Source of Income (TDS). This mission critical and key contributor for the country’s overall economic
development program is designed, developed and managed by Infosys as an end-to-end business
transformation under Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model.
This program posed lot of complexities in terms of Technology complexities – a state of the art technology
architecting requirements as one of its kind; Domain complexity – being huge with lot of clauses & subclauses having 2500+ complex business rules; the Indian tax process is one of the most complex
legislative framework in the world; Resource availability challenges with required niche skills of both
technology & domain; Operational complexity with BOOT model and to own non-core functions of facility
setup and maintenance and Complexity in change – as there are many variables / factors / governing
bodies which could affect change in rules frequently it’s a great challenge in meeting these changes
within timelines of just before annual filing cycle.
To deal with such complex, critical & nation building program, the best industry standards/ practices set in
project management are followed which are inspired by PMBoK and CMMi standards and guidelines.
Best practices were followed for executing, monitoring and controlling the process groups, to ensure
successful delivery like robust Program Governance; Quantitative approach to project management; Colocation of teams for better engagements with stake holders; industry standard development & review
guidelines; always open for automating the processes for productivity & quality improvement; innovative
communication strategies of being in touch with users periodically and much more which would be
discussed in detail in the main body below.
The program is highly successful in meeting all the desired objectives laid for processing Individual tax
and TDS filings. The entire processing along with tax officials workflows and functionalities have been
made smooth with less / no manual intervention. The average IT return processing reduced to 60 days,
TDS processing to 5 days; and there is huge financial gain for the department as no interest payments to
be paid for delayed processing of refunds. The program also embarked on key green initiative in reducing
the paper usage, which resulted in huge savings. The program won many awards and appreciations from
Govt. and other Indian institutions.
Details of the paper
Executive Summary & Background
The Income Tax Department (ITD) is responsible for collecting Direct taxes and administering the Income
Tax Law and other direct tax statutes for Government of India, has offices in 510 cities and towns across
India and has around 55,000 employees. The day to day tax related operations are receipt of return,
processing of return, issue of refund / challan and tax collection and processing, Tax Deducted at Source
(TDS) returns are filed through Tax Information Network-Facilitations Counters spread across the County.
The Income Tax Returns were being processed in decentralized manner either manually or on standalone applications.
Post liberalization of the Indian Economy by Govt. of India to make Indian business globalized, the
business & economic growth rate has been steep since then and with that, there has been an exponential
growth in tax collections, and in the number of tax payers along with TDS collections and Deductee
records. This had led to huge workload in the ITD.
Key challenges/issues for ITD are:
1.
The workload and pressure to process filings further aggravated by reducing workforce
2.
Average time to process individual IT returns was more than 370 days. Dispatch of Intimations for
TDS statements took over 180 days - Delayed processing of returns with tax refunds, resulted in
huge interest paid annually (~ INR 4000 Cr (800M USD) by the ITD)
3.
No easy workflow model for the task to seamlessly flow through different modules / IT officers
concerned for their review
4.
Communication with tax payers is not optimum, preventing right closure of grievances
5.
Taxpayers’ expectation have been increased for improved tax payer service and quicker
response
To improve the processing efficiency and better tax payer services, ITD undertook a Business Process
Reengineering (BPR) exercise, and the outcome was to leverage Information Technology for a large
scale automation of the filings processing. Based on these recommendations, to automate their IT filings
processing, ITD decide to establish Centralized Processing Centers (CPC), one for processing citizens’ efiled returns at Bangalore (ITDCPC); and other for processing TDS (TDSCPC) filings at Vaishali.
Business need of the program:
ITD’s key business need of the program was to achieve the following outcomes:
To ITD & their Staff:
1.
Improved service delivery to citizens & Deductors, with Standardized practices and procedures
for the defaults / errors detected, timely reporting the Deductor and correction of the same.
2.
Centralized system to monitor and evaluate the status of returns
3.
Better accounting and reconciliation of taxes collected
4.
Capability to handle increased workload
5.
Convenient & speedy clearance of demands and refunds
6.
Convenient, speedier and centralized access to the Information on tax collection
7.
Better utilization of ITD employees’ time in areas of value-added services like compliance
activities such as scrutiny, recovery, survey etc.
8.
Availability of trends, patterns and gaps analysis enabling informed decision making with
Centralized decision support system to monitor and evaluate the performance.
To Citizens / Tax payers / Deductors:
1.
Improved service delivery with standardized practices and procedures, Taxpayer services in line
with international best practices.
2.
Accuracy and Timely clearance of all Demands and Refunds due
3.
Near real-time view of Tax Credits available online (26AS) for filing Income Tax Returns
4.
Centralized and effective Grievance Redressal Mechanism to address grievances and
Rectification requests and its tracking
5.
Well Defined Procedure for filing Online correction statements with respect to TDS Statement
6.
Availability of all IT returns/TDS Statement-related information online
7.
Anytime, anywhere services; Multiple service delivery channels
This gigantic implementation is first of its kind for Infosys to engage end-to-end business-transformation
program where Infosys had to venture into non-core business areas (like being responsible for designing,
architecting, an building the processing center facilities including development seating areas, conference
rooms and maintenance of the same till end of the contract) as well.
Objectives of the program:
Overall objective of the program is as detailed below:
1.
To develop a comprehensive system to increase efficiency in processing; accounting and
reconciliation of the IT returns & TDS Statements.
2.
To set up CPCs for back office automation and to automate back-end processes in line with best
practices in the industry
3.
To manage tax administration functions like receipt, scanning, data entry, processing, issue of
refunds and storage of IT returns & TDS/TCS data in a centralized manner.
4.
The solution should be flexible enough to quickly accommodate legislative/procedural changes
made from time to time by Income Tax Department /Government.
5.
To establish a scientific, systematic record storage and retrieval management system to minimize
retrieval time and maximize retrieval probability
6.
To establish a scalable model for quick replication across the country
7.
Enabling intelligent analysis through Business Intelligence tools for identifying exceptions, trends
and doing gap analysis.
Scope, Scale & Complexity of the program:
The overall scope, scale and complexity that was posed by the program is illustrated by the following:
1.
Detailed Information Technology implementation strategy for the ITDCPC & TDSCPC
2.
Software Design, Development/Procurement/Customization, and Installation, Data Migration and
Training & Documentation for Services/Functions.
3.
Assessment, Procurement and Installation of IT Hardware and Management of Data Centre,
Disaster Recovery Center (DRC)
4.
Establishment and Maintenance of Central Processing Center (CPC) including facility fit-outs,
security requirements and obtaining all specified ISO certifications
5.
Processing of IT returns, TDS/TCS statements by identification & rectification of Defaults (short
payment, short deduction and late payment)
6.
Correction (like PAN errors etc.) and reconciliation among other ITD system data values (like
reported through OLTAS, 24 G Statements, TCS / TDS statements etc.)
7.
Operations and Maintenance of Application Software & IT Infrastructure
8.
Design & Execution of Communication Strategy – like establishment and operation of a bulk
mailing unit;
9.
Establishment and operation of a comprehensive record management system for the CPC,
including management of records at an off-site storage and obtaining all relevant ISO
certifications
10. Establishment and operation of a Call center for taxpayer follow up and grievance handling
Solution Overview
CPC solution is proposed to be based on the theme of “USAGE” with a focus on following outcomes as
depicted in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1: Financial System Architecture
•
Establish a sustainable and scalable IT processing ecosystem which can cater to the needs of
economic growth of India
•
Empower Taxpayers of the country with near real-time perfectly IT return processing and reconciled
information on taxes deducted (26AS Statement) to facilitate smooth taxpaying experience.
•
Drive voluntary compliance by enabling the Taxpayer Citizens and Tax Deductors through end-toend online services and provision for transparent & uniform information (Digital Certificates, Defaults
Justification Reports, Conso Files, and Online Corrections etc.)
•
Institutionalize timely and accurate redressal of grievances through intersection of Technology and
Human interface (Online Grievance Module, email services, Contact / Call Centre etc.)
•
Improve efficiencies of the Income Tax Department by automation of resource-intensive manual
processes, Business Analytics and Sensitivity Analyzes, to create a robust enforcement and
compliance engine.
•
Establish framework for enhancing Tax Compliance with reduced administrative costs for the
Department and Tax Deductors
Below is the functional solution overview of CPCs. Figure 2 depicts for ITDCPC and Figure 3 depicts
TDSCPC:
Figure 2: Functional Solution of ITRCPC
Figure 3: Functional Solution of TDSCPC
Challenges of the program:
Key challenges encountered for implement this program are detailed in the below:
Application /
ITDCPC
TDSCPC
•
•
Complex business rules - Codifying the
Complex business rules (more than
Functional
entire Income Tax Act-considered the
500) posing challenges to a
complexity
most complex legislative framework in
configurable system
the world.
•
Huge volume of data - 4TB
•
2500+ complex IT business Rule sets
consisting of 8 billion records to be
•
Accommodating constantly changing
managed
Tax laws that have a direct bearing on
•
Managing Migrated statement from
revenue generated for Government of
Legacy systems (app 7 yrs.) was a
India, which need to incorporated before
tedious & complex
processing the return of that assessment
•
Accommodating constantly
•
•
year.
changing Tax laws that have a direct
Huge user base –need to serve for 3Cr
bearing on revenue generated for
taxpayers, hence huge volumes of
Government of India, which need to
processing
incorporated before processing the
Completely automated tax processing
return of that assessment year.
system – no manual intervention
•
Huge user base - Deductors filing 6+
million quarterly statements of four
statement types; process tax
certificates for 40+ Million Taxpayers
of the country and ensure timely
availability over internet
Technological
•
4 layer architecture
•
4 layer architecture
Complexity
•
Many different vendor products to be
•
Many different vendor products to be
•
managed to gel into the overall solution
managed to gel into the overall
Hand written paper based returns
solution
processing required specially designed
•
solution
Deployment of over 200 Mbps of
WAN bandwidth connecting over 4
locations.
•
Supporting about 500+ Internal Users
and over 40+ million internet users.
Non-
•
Stringent and many SLAs out of that 25
•
Over 50 stringent SLAs applicable
Functional
are applicable month on month which
month on month which with significant
complexity
with a penalty impact to the tune 35% of
penalty impact.
revenue.
•
•
Highly skewed work load especially
Highly skewed work load (during peak
during the annual reconciliation period
period an additional 60% of the average
and during QTRly filings by
yearly processing load is put on the
Deductors.
system within 3 months)
Program
•
Criticality
•
ITRs should be processed within 2 years
•
Single platform in the country for
of filing else there are legal implications
administering TDS Revenue and
Refund processing not done on time
Enforcement of Tax Compliance
leads to huge interest pay out
•
•
26AS feed provided by TDS CPC is
Processing of Rectification applications
critical for downstream systems that
should be complete within 6 months
process Income Tax Returns from
taxpayers of country
•
TDS Data collection and Analysis
platform enables policy environment
for the Government of India with MIS
and DSS, improving policy making
efficiencies affecting the life of over 1+
billion Indian Citizens
Other program challenges are:
1.
Data migration - Legacy tax administration systems created multiple isolated and stand-alone
processes. The processes not only resulted into multiple interfaces, but also generated data in
non-homogenous formats related to several years. Complex migration of such data with size over
few terra bytes posed a challenging task to the project team to create consistency and alignment
with uniform business rules.
2.
Domain & Functional resource scarcity - Complex Income Tax Act and Rules required
functional expertise to convert domain into technology.
3.
Over a dozen highly complex interfaces of ITD that had evolved over last two decades required
integration to create a self- sustainable ecosystem, with zero tolerance for any error.
4.
Mission critical to the economy, management of such radical change, through setting up of
efficient Knowledge Management practices proved to be critical, having a strong bearing on the
success of the project.
5.
India is among one of few countries in the world to establish an initiative of such scale for
technology-driven administration of processing direct tax operations.
6.
Being single-window Tax administration platform, the program has extremely high visible impact
across the nation.
7.
Assessment of IT Infrastructure, which could not only seamlessly service the scale of the program
scope, but also meet the future requirements of tax administration, posed a huge challenge to the
project
8.
Setting up a required physical facilities (buildings, interiors, conference rooms and maintenance
of them) for CPC was a new area for Infosys, and had venture into new business partners.
9.
Tax filings processing touches Taxpaying Indian citizen of different profiles. Wrong ITR
processing would have very high public relation impact and brand Impact.
10. Planning, architecting, designing of the CPC facility floors along with development area,
conference rooms, cafeterias (provision of chairs, couches, coffee vending machines, floor
landscaping and maintenance), facility security (physical and electronic with CC cameras) –
which is a true non-core business for Infosys
Methodologies / Practices followed in the program:
Project Management practices followed in the program were inspired by PMBoK and CMMi standards
and guidelines. Organizational Process Assets were referenced to implement processes and procedures
across all process groups. Best practices were followed for executing, monitoring and controlling the
process groups, to ensure successful delivery:
1.
Project Integration Management
•
Overall project charter was discussed and finalized during the initial stages of the program.
Various
program
management
plans
(Risk
Mgmt.,
Project
Schedule
monitoring,
Communication Mgmt. Design & development process (FRS, SRS, Use case, SAD etc.), Exit
mgmt. etc.) were discussed and finalized along with the document templates to be followed.
•
Dev to Dev Integration - Integration testing before the release to testing team, which reduces
the rework time by reducing the defects from SIT stage.
2.
Project Scope Management
•
Well defined Change Control process to optimize and regulate the changes to the system.
Forming a change control board for review and approval of all changes.
•
Reusable/Dynamic solution approach – as part of this strategy, the Business Rule Engine for
converting complex income tax calculations rules to software has been designed as
configurable. This enabled handling the changes and enhancements in the Rules quickly and
correctly year on year.
•
Formation of dedicated teams covering all tracks for the project proved a critical success
factor
3.
Project Time Management
•
Quantitative approach to project management was adopted. Function Point Analysis and
Project Budgeting system were used for scientific project estimations to effectively manage
cost and timelines.
•
Schedule planning and tracking at each track level which then aggregated to the program
level – this will ease the monitoring & control the schedule delays at micro level. Program
level governance enables to identify, plan and address the dependencies among the various
tracks.
•
4.
Weekly planning of deliverables to exercise robust control on project progress
Project Cost Management
•
Automation strategy - System monitoring and Operation tasks have been automated, resulted
in effective utilization of resources for monitoring & operational tasks.
•
Continuous Improvement through Innovation to improve efficiency of IT filings processing.
Program had improved:
•
o
Optimized loading of UI for heavy functional modules
o
Performance fine-tuning of critical services, DB queries etc.
o
Optimized exception handling framework
Green Initiative - Initiative for reduction of paper communication
o
E-Communication channels (E-mail, SMS) for intimations, alerts, reporting grievances/
issues and their redressal; e-Tutorials for User manuals and FAQs; Comprehensive Eoffices for the field formation with MIS Reports etc.
•
Centralized dispatch of Intimations - resulted in cumulative savings of 20 MUSD saving in
postage cost to ITD for TDSCPC
5.
Project Quality Management
•
A Steering Committee was formed for strategic planning and to govern project progress
through tollgate reviews.
•
Peer and Group Code reviews ensured Quality Assurance for deliverables.
•
Leading and Lagging Quality Metrics (Defect Injection Ratio, Schedule Adherence, Cost of
Quality, Productivity etc.) were consistently tracked to ensure quality of deliverables;
•
Causal Analysis Report Analysis on Defects and Statistical Process Controls were
implemented for aligning Quality parameters within Control Limits
•
Focus on quality – adopting the industry best practices:
o
ISO 15489 - Records Management Certification
o
iTrim – Lean Six Sigma
- Ticket reduction, System throughput improvement and
elimination of unplanned downtime
o
6.
Project Human Resource Management
•
•
•
7.
CMMI and ISO-9001 practices implemented
Effective knowledge management & sharing process:
o
Gyan Guru, CPC KM Portal developed
o
Artifacts Repository: Single Repository for all artifacts and knowledge sharing
Employee engagement:
o
Partnership with unit HR, to take measures to improve employee morale
o
Job rotation policy–enabled for critical resources to join the program when most needed
o
Induction training and domain training on Finance and Accounting.
o
Frequent recreational/fun activities to build the employee relationship
Shuttles for easy conveyance from client to Infosys offices
Project Communications Management
•
Project Team was co-located within Customer's premises for effective Communication
Management and facilitating integration amongst them.
•
Communications - Communication is the pulse of the project. Focus is the capacity building
of all stakeholders by reaching out to them through various channels
o
Call Centre - setup to address stakeholders clarifications (inbound). CPC responds 2-3K
calls per day
o
E-tutorials and FAQs - regularly updated based on call center feedback. Optimizes call
center services.
o
Dedicated educational drive through targeted email campaign
o
Audio/ Video Conferencing – field assessing officers’ trainings on AV conferences
o
Internal WhatsApp group - engages over a variety of contents and contexts
•
Institutionalized Grievance Redressal mechanism – established support through many echannels (like Call Centre, e-mails, Online Grievance Portal on the website) otherwise it was
just based on manual / human interface
8.
Project Risk Management
•
Governance with senior officers (client’s PMO) - A well-defined program management
process to address both strategic and operational challenges / risks along with initiatives.
•
A Project Management Office (internal PMO) was established for management of the Scope,
Delivery, Risk and Project Integration, through a well-defined Infosys Project Management
framework.
•
Regular risk assessment and governance (monitoring & control - mostly weekly) among all
the internal track teams.
•
Rigorous Issue-tracking and detailed Customer interactions on periodic basis ensured
stakeholder participation
•
Weekly operational meeting and BCH meeting with defined effective escalation mechanism,
to address the priorities right on the deliverables and speedy resolution of dragging issues
•
Project Health and Status reports published to the Steering Committee to identify gaps and
implement Continuous Improvements
9.
Project Procurement Management
•
Dedicated team to plan, monitor, control, and manage all the program’s procurements (Infra
hardware servers, network, bandwidth etc. and consumables like papers, printers &
cartridges etc.
10. Project Stakeholder Management
•
Project
Stakeholder
Management
was
facilitated
by
implementing
robust
Program
Governance at Strategic, Tactical and Operational levels.
•
Annual offsite joint planning exercises with client, at the beginning of each year.
•
User engagement with feedback mechanism - An Online feedback form on website for
deductors as well as for deductees has been made available on TRACES. As part of Good
Governance, program connects with over 1,000 end-users every week to continuously
assess satisfaction levels for various services. This exercise assumes significance in view of
the following objectives achieved:
o
Provides for an institutionalized mechanism for assessing user experience.
o
Helps systematic review and in continuous improvisation of the grievance resolution
mechanism
•
o
Feedback helps in improving quality of FAQs/e-tutorials for self-help of users/deductors
o
Enrichment of user experience with CPC
o
Resolution of issues assists in driving Income tax compliance for all stakeholders
Vendor management & governance process, starting from vendor SoW definition to service
monitoring,
SLAs
tracking,
feedback
and enhancing the vendors’
capabilities
with
collaborative knowledge sessions, which ensures efficient utilization of vendor services and
Timely resolution of related issues / risks. Further associating with the Infosys facilities &
construction partner to associate with the program to build the CPC facilities
•
Change Management / Brand Enhancement
o
Annual TAXMela - full-fledged team deployed during the Income tax return filing melas to
support the taxpayers and provide assistance in filing of forms
o
Annual trainings to IRS Officers – sessions conducted every year to probationers of IRS.
o
Participated in seminars, associations of taxpayers, Chartered Accountants for resolving
issues faced by taxpayers, seminars have been conducted all over India
Project Impact: Key benefits of the program:
To Citizens:
•
•
Average processing time has reduced
o
ITDCPC - from 370 days to 60-90 days
o
TDSCPC – from > year to 5 days
Robust
tax
reconciliation mechanism for accurate and timely credit for the taxes
paid/deducted - led to faster refunds and minimal grievances
•
Business hours call center facilities – quick clarifications, resolution & settlement of issues
and grievances
•
Provides end-to-end e-enabled value added services that are accessible on anytimeanywhere basis
•
Online facilities for deductors, avoiding physical visit to TIN-FC or Assessing officers.
•
Effective and on time intimations by e-channels – SMS, e-mails to communication key status
update of the filings processing
To ITD and their Staff:
•
Automated processing improved the capability to meet the growing IT return and TDS
Statement filings volume, reduced the work load for ITD, and resulting their staff to focus on
key business decision processing, and value added services
•
ITDCPC:
o
Processing capability raised from 5-6 million to 30 million transactions in FY2014-15 &
32.7 million till Dc-2015, for FY 2015-16. Total for FY2015-16 could reach ~40 million.
o
Reduction of Interest outgo - Savings ~INR 1138 Cr, in FY13-14; and INR 1635 Cr in
FY14-15 (till Dec’15)
o
Reduction in paper communication by 70%, resulting in cumulative savings of ~INR
1141 Cr in postage cost in FY 14-15 & FY15-16 (Upto 31 Dec 15) ~INR 132 Cr, and till
date (for 6 FYs), INR 499.75 Cr
o
The Records Management System at CPC has been certified for ISO: 15489-1:2001
standard. CPC is the first organization in Asia to receive this certification.
•
TDSCPC:
o
Cost of maintaining voluminous physical TDS certificates – 540 million electronic
TDS Certificates issued till March 31, 2016
o
Cost involved in reconciliation of taxes by taxpayers with the deductors – Reduction
in TDS mismatches from over 6.3% to less than 2% of taxpayers
o
Prevention of fraudulent claims due to Digital TDS Certificates issued by TDSCPC, in
perfect reconciliation with Tax Credit Statement (26AS)
o
Reduction of Interest outgo on account of faster processing of TDS Statements and
timely output in Tax Credit Statements (26AS).
o
Reduction in paper communication – Reduction of over 80% in usage of paper for
submitting TDS related issues to ITD ; and usage of e-channels has resulted in savings
of postage, time and effort costs
Enabled the ITD to perform business analytics that provides significant inputs for
o
effective policy formulation and improving the tax compliance levels in the country.
Conclusion:
Establishing Centralized Processing Centers for administering the Direct Tax legislation is one of the most
critical and nation building programs for the Government of India. Infosys has been very successful in
implementing this on End to End business transformation program on BOOT model which included Infra
setup (Physical and Software), Application Development, Maintenance and Business operation. For
Infosys it was first of its kind end-to-end business transformation program. It posed various complexities
and challenges that were described, and the team has been successful in addressing them following
industry standard and innovative program management techniques and practices.
The program had immense positive impact for the citizens’ of the India, Income Tax Department and to
the Govt. of India as detailed above.
India is projected to become the third largest economy of the world by 2050. The growth of economy will
influence Per Capita Income requiring a forward looking robust ecosystem along with citizen centric
values to administer Tax compliance in the country. This program is in the process of unfolding a new
era of ease of compliance through user friendly services to all stakeholders.
Accolades
The path breaking contribution of this program has been recognized by the Government of India and
other independent institutions by rewarding with:
Awards:
•
th
18
National Gold Award 2014-15 for Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering
to TDSCPC
•
Prime Minister’s award for Excellence in Public Administration to CBDT in April 2015.
ITDCPC & TDSCPC contributed as a major initiative in earning this recognition.
•
17th edition of “Best e-Governance Implementation” award by Express Technology Sabha,
2015 to TDSCPC
•
Appreciation award at “CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2015” for TDSCPC
Appreciations:
•
From Commissioner of Income Tax:
•
Revenue Secretary: Shri Hasmukh Adhia:
“I am so happy to see such marvelous system being operated in IT Department, so many officers
must have put in number of hours of dedicated work in order to mak e it so nice. My compliments
to all of them. It is the most sophisticated IT system I have ever seen in any Government
Department”.
•
Chairperson CBDT Anita Kapur:
“I am proud of this facility and the achievements of the team in easing the compliance burden of
our taxpayers, other initiatives, commitment to excellence and adoption of state of art technology
are commendable. I wish them success in their future endeavors”.
•
Media reports
o
http://www.moneylife.in/article/is-this-the-new-fac e-of -indian-income-tax/43285.html
o
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/I-T-dept-gets-k udos-for-fasterrefunds/articleshow/48646874.cms
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Feedback Process: The satisfaction results of survey completed for over 380,000 end-users
Way Forward:
India with GDP growth of over 7% is the bright spot at this juncture in global arena. As India is positioning
itself to generate 10 million employments per year, there is strong need to upgrade infrastructure. In this
backdrop, revenue collection needs to be scaled up to match enhanced investment in infrastructure and
public goods. There is a need to scale up efficiency and effectiveness of Tax administration. With the
theme of “USAGE” at the core of Tax Administration, this program is gearing up to
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provide enhanced self- service channels for stakeholders through single window service i.e. web
portal
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shift taxpayer service demand from costly channel to cost effective and efficient channel
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extensive use of social media technology in reaching out to stakeholders
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roll out new enhanced functionalities with user centered design and approach
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extensive analysis of data to provide significant inputs for effective policy formulation
References:
[1] Finance ministry report for the quantitative data for FY 2014-15:
http://finmin.nic.in/reports/AnnualReport2014-15.pdf
[2] Finance ministry report for the quantitative data for FY 2015-16:
http://finmin.nic.in/reports/AnnualReport2015-16.pdf