CBDT will switch to automated tax scrutiny

The process of selecting tax cases for scrutiny on a random basis is being replaced by a system-based centralised approach, the government on Tuesday said.

“It may be clarified that for the past several years, the process of selection of cases for scrutiny on a random basis has been dispensed away with,” finance minister Arun Jaitley informed the Rajya Sabha.

“Instead, CBDT has devised a system-based method in a centralised manner through CASS (Computer Assisted Scru-tiny Selection) whereby the selection is made on the basis of detailed analysis of risk parameters and 360 degree data profiling of taxpayers.”

Mr Jaitley added: “This has substantially reduced the manual intervention in the selection process.”The minister, however, noted that some cases are also picked up manually on the basis of pre-determined revenue-potential based parameters.

“The guidelines of selection under this category are also placed in the public domain for a wider information of taxpayers,” he said.

The process of selection of cases for scrutiny has become quite transparent, scientific and fine-tuned, and manual intervention has been minimised and factors leading to complaints of harassment of taxpayers have largely been eliminated, Mr Jaitley claimed.

Replying to a separate query, the finance minister said the Income Tax department rolled out a project on October 19 to conduct scrutiny by sending queries through e-mails in order to improve taxpayer services and usher in a paperless environment.