The faceless authority has recently suggested a number of changes in the assessment process after a number of practical difficulties were raised by taxpayers since the new regime was rolled out.
On August 3, the National Faceless Assessment Centre issued a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to address several anomalies in the regime, reported Business Standard.
The faceless centre, constituted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, is the nodal authority and works as an interface for the faceless regime
Under the new SOP, an assessing officer will propose computation of income and loss after considering all aspects — differences and variations in the tax addition made by the department and responses submitted by the assessee — before passing the final order in the case.
The assessing officer will prepare an income and loss determination proposal (ILDP) after considering the taxpayers’ reply to a show-cause notice and a personal hearing in each case, it said.
The faceless unit has also suggested specific timelines for each step of the process.
The faceless authority has even defined roles of the assessment unit, verification unit, technical unit and review unit in the revised SOP, which was absent earlier.
Further, to improve compliance, the department will send a centralised communication to taxpayers in case of non-responsiveness of the notices. It also suggested sending a physical letter at the latest known address along with text messages of the assessee.
Besides, the assessing officer can seek special audit in a specific case such as nature and complexity of accounts, volume of accounts, doubts about transactions, and specialised nature of business activity.
The authority also suggests that the final assessment order must contain specific information such as if the assessee seeks video conferencing without filing complete or any submission against show cause, inference made on the basis of which tax variations are being made, among others.