Advancing Income Tax Return E-Filing: A Study on Effective Modifications and System Improvements

In this rapidly evolving technological era, e-filing has emerged as a transformative method to file income tax returns, which has facilitated significant advantages pertaining to time and cost saving, convenience, and reduced stress on the part of the taxpayers. Despite these, there remains a considerable gap in fulfilling the objectives, including but not limited to, devising a transparent mechanism towards the submissions of e-filings, the lack of awareness and understanding of the procedures concerning e-filing among individual taxpayers. This research article explores the evolution of filing to e-filing with the current state of e- filing systems and proposes modifications to enhance their efficiency and user-friendliness. Additionally, it provides valuable insights for policymakers, tax authorities, to foster an inclusive and efficient e-filing environment that aligns with the advancements in technology while meeting the needs of both the tax payers and collectors. A notable focus will be on the upcoming launch of the “New ITR e-filing portal 3.0”. The proposed Project IEC 3.0, which aims to deliver a more user-friendly and faster e-filing experience, will be further discussed in the paper, exploring its anticipated impact on improving the current system.