Context:

The Income-tax Act, 1961 (the Act) was amended in 2019 to introduce the concept of faceless assessment and in 2020 to provide for statutory recognition of a tax-payers charter and an enabling provision for faceless appeals. The “Transparent Taxation Honouring the Honest” platform was launched in August 2020, covering the aforesaid aspects.

Faceless Assessment

• Faceless assessment is faceless tax scrutiny that eliminates the interface between the taxpayer and the Income Tax Department.
• Under this system, the selection of a taxpayer will be done only through systems using data analytics and AI.
• Moreover, territorial jurisdiction will be abolished, and the draft assessment order, review, and finalization will take place in different cities. Cases will be also be automatically allotted on a random basis.

Faceless Appeal

• Under this system, appeals will be randomly allocated to any officer in the country and the identity of officers handling the appeal will remain unknown.
• There will also be no need to visit the officer or the office.
• Exceptions to this will be cases of serious frauds, major tax evasions, Black Money Act, Benami property, etc