New Income Tax e-filing website launched: ITR e-filing 2.0 portal new features, details – everything you need to know

We are as excited about the new portal as our users!
We are at the final stages in the roll-out of the new portal and it will be available shortly. We appreciate your patience as we work towards making it operational soon.#NewPortal

— Income Tax India (@IncomeTaxIndia) June 7, 2021

Separately, the I-T Dept notified all the existing taxpayers by sending a text to their registered numbers. “Dear Taxpayer, The Income Tax Department is happy to inform the launch of its new e-filing portal http://www.incometax.gov.in on 7th June, 2021.”

New income tax website launched: Here’s the first look at the new portal. (Screengrab: http://www.incometax.gov.in)

Ahead of the launch of the new portal, the existing portal http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in was not available to taxpayers for six days from June 1-6, 2021. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in May had urged taxpayers to complete all their urgent tasks involving any submission, upload or downloads before June 1 to avoid any difficulty during the phaseout period (June 1-6). It had said that to ensure there is no inconvenience to taxpayers, it will not fix any compliance dates during this period.

What are the new features?

The new website will enable a new online tax payment system with multiple new payment options using net banking, UPI, credit card and RTGS/NEFT from any account of the taxpayer in any bank, for easy payment of taxes.

On Saturday, the Ministry of Finance issued a press statement listing the new features and changes in the upcoming Income Tax portal:

• New taxpayer friendly portal integrated with immediate processing of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) to issue quick refunds to taxpayers
• All interactions and uploads or pending actions will be displayed on a single dashboard for follow-up action by taxpayer
• Free of cost ITR preparation software available with interactive questions to help taxpayers for ITRs 1, 4 (online and offline) and ITR 2 (offline) to begin with; Facility for preparation of ITRs 3, 5, 6, 7 will be made available shortly
• Taxpayers will be able to proactively update their profile to provide certain details of income including salary, house property, business/profession which will be used in pre-filling their ITR. Detailed enablement of pre-filling with salary income, interest, dividend and capital gains will be available after TDS and SFT statements are -uploaded (due date is June 30th, 2021)
• New call center for taxpayer assistance for promt response to taxpayer queries. Detailed FAQs, User Manuals, Videos and chatbot/live agent also provided
• Functionalities for filing Income Tax Forms, Add tax professionals, Submit responses to Notices in Faceless Scrutiny or Appeals would be available

“New tax payment system will be launched on June 18th, 2021 after the advance tax installment date to avoid any taxpayer inconvenience. The mobile app will also be released subsequent to the initial launch of the portal, to enable taxpayers to get familiar with the various features,” the finance ministry statement said.

The CBDT had on May 20 announced that is going to launch a new income tax filing portal on June 7 and the existing portal, which will be phased out later, will not be available for taxpayers and other external stakeholders between June 1-6.