Lok Sabha Question No. 601 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2018-07-20
Subject: Technical Glitches in Online Tax Filing
Ministry: FINANCE
Asked by: HARISH CHANDRA MEENA

## Government of India Ministry of Finance Department of Revenue LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTIONS NO. 601

TO BE ANSWERED ON FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2018 ASHADHA  29, 1940 (SAKA)

## TECHNICAL GLITCHES IN ONLINE TAX FILING

601. SHRI HARISH MEENA:

Will the Minister of FINANCE be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether the Government has taken notice of difficulties being faced by various tax payers for filing of online taxes like personal tax, Goods and Services Tax (GST) etc. and if so, the details thereof;
- (b)  the number of complaints received by the Government over failure of website/ software during peak time of tax submission during the last three years; and
- (c) the action taken by the Government in this regard?

## ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE (SHIV PRATAP SHUKLA)

- (a):    Yes, the government has taken notice of difficulties being faced by various tax payers for filing of online taxes.

(b):

- (i)      The  Online  Direct  Taxes  are  being  paid  through  the  authorized  banks  only.  No  statistics regarding the number of complaint received by the Government over failure of website/software during peak time of tax submission is being maintained by the Income-tax department.
- (ii) 100 complaints were received from tax payers by NSDL around 8.00 pm on 31.03.2015 regarding  difficulties  faced  in  the  online  payment  of  Central  Excise  and  Service  Tax  through EASIEST portal.
- (iii)   GST Portal had some hardware/software problems for six days due to which the system had become slow or unresponsive for some hours. On each of these days the problems were identified and rectified on high priority. The number of Tickets generated on these day are is under:-

| Date      |   Total Number of Tickets |
|-----------|---------------------------|
| 19-Aug-17 |                      1865 |
| 05-Sep-17 |                      9664 |
| 08-Sep-17 |                     13159 |
| 20-Jan-18 |                     10328 |
| 20-Apr-18 |                      4617 |
| 19-May-18 |                      3108 |

(c): resolve the difficulties.

(i)       With respect to Direct Taxes a complaint over the failure of website/software is received either by offline or online mode, the matter is duly considered by the department. In case, the failure is of the banks, the matter is taken up with the banks for rectification and in case, the mistake is of the assesse, the steps to be followed by the assesse are explained to him/her to (ii)    With respect to Indirect Taxes the complaints were resolved within 30 minutes and the tax payers were able to make payments. (iii)          In  respect  of  Goods  and  Services  Tax,  immediately  upon  receiving  the  alert  of malfunctioning of the Hardware/software Component through GST System monitoring apparatus, the technical team of GSTN, MSP Infosys and OEM manufacturer were activated to diagnose  and  resolve  the  problem.  Root  cause  was  identified  and  after  analysis  it  was expeditiously rectified. To prevent future incidents, additional monitoring has been established. The processes for routine maintenance of the effected Software/Hardware component has been recalibrated to ensure safeguards against similar issues in future.

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